CNBC European Business | Shelf Life: 10 Retail Trends

Shelf Life: 10 Retail Trends

Shops are increasingly mirroring our habits and aspirations. John Ryan reports

1. BUILDING PLANS: THE RACE FOR SPACE
Until recently, stores have spread outwards. But planning regimes and the rising cost of ground-level units is persuading retailers to build up. At the end of 2007, Coventry recorded a world first: a six-floor Ikea. The 24,000m² store is in the middle of the British city, giving access to urban shoppers and opening the possibility for edge-of-town Ikea to become a high-street operator. The trend is also seen in Warsaw, where Zloty Tarasy shopping centre, which opened last year, brings the out-of-town experience to the city centre. And in Thailand, the new 50,000m² Zen department store rises seven floors in the middle of Bangkok. A retail race but along another axis.

2. HIGH-TECH: THE HUMAN TOUCH
For all but the geeky, a trip to a shop selling high-tech goods has become alienating. As gadgetry has become more complex, retailers are beginning to become aware such stores may offer a hostile retail experience. The Ted Baker & Friends store in the City of London, has many high-tech offerings, but customers could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Mobile phones are housed in vintage leather suitcases, an on-screen concierge service is provided from a phone box and an LED light chandelier is formed from a flock of stuffed pigeons. Technology with a human face is also evident at Sony Style in Heathrow’s Terminal 5, which has been given a softer edge with the incorporation of a fascia and mid-floor fixtures clad in bleached wood. In the future, retailers will need to show that technology can be human if they are to convince.

3. INNOVATION: SPACE-AGE INTERACTION
There’s still a place for the flagship technology store that combines the latest digital products with an environment that makes the shopper feel at the centre of a vanguard heading into the future. But even this vision is evolving. Futuristic stores are increasingly seeking to interact with customers. In Nokia’s London store, customers removing a handset from its display can view product information that appears on the walls above. And upstairs, a lounge washed in blue-light provides a hyper-modern retail environment. Across the street, the Apple store offers free email access, a ‘genius’ bar and a ‘learn-how-to’ theatre. It’s also worth noting Bangkok’s SpaceGal – a Star Trek-style lingerie store that subverts expectations about how the retail segment should appear and encourages interaction.

4. LUXURY: HIGH-END FLYING HIGH
High-end retailers continue to enjoy good times, with stores springing up in emerging markets, such as Istanbul. Naked, a fashion store that opened on the city’s European side in March, has it all, from unclothed, highgloss, alien mannequins, to backlit walls and neon graphics. This is a shop that panders to affluent shoppers’ need to feel pampered. Not far from Naked is Kanyon, an ultraluxe, mixed-used shopping, residential and office scheme designed to imitate the sinuous curves of a river gorge. Meanwhile, in Paris, spiritual home of ultraluxe, the Louis Vuitton flagship on the Champs-Elysées may be a few years old, but it embodies everything that the trend is about. The rise of a global elite should ensure that ultraluxe will grow and grow.

5. BOOKSHOPS: GETTING THE PICTURE
For centuries, bookshops have been associated with library-style presentation with sections signposted accordingly. Now in this Amazon and Kindle world, booksellers cannot afford to look stale. In Manchester, Waterstone’s has opened a store that features graphics rather than words to guide shoppers around. For instance, to find a crime novel, shoppers can look for the overhead picture of a misdemeanor about to be committed. The substitution of pictures for words is a trend that has been taking place for some time, but it is at its most obvious in a context where the primacy of print has rarely been in dispute. Singapore’s Page One follows a similar path with an interior that imitates the pages of a book and features asymmetric bookshelves.

6. BUDGET: CHEAP GETS CHIC
The value end of retail has traditionally involved compromise: products will be cheap, but so will the environments that sell them. Now retailers such as Primark, from Ireland, Japan’s Uniqlo, and Aldi, from Germany, are showing that value retailing does not have to be a depressing experience. Primark opened a 3,700m² store on Oxford Street in 2007 that plays all the mid-market merchandising tricks. Designed by London-based Dalziel + Pow, it has dark wood perimeter panels, blue neon strips above the central escalator and mannequins placed casually around the store. Down the street, Uniqlo’s flagship would not disgrace some nearby Bond Street operations. But given the success of the likes of Primark, what will become of mid-market retailers?

7. FOOD HALLS: BACK TO BASICS
The major trend in top-end food retailing is what might be termed a ‘back to basics’ approach. The best example is US operator Whole Foods Market. Visit any of its stores (the 7,400m² store in Kensington, London, is a good example) and the shopper is presented with a form of market-style shopping. Rather than hurrying down long aisles and throwing items into a shopping trolley, there is an emphasis on personal choice and selection, with the help of staff standing behind counters ready to advise on what might be best. This is food shopping for pleasure and even the instore signage is chalked up on blackboards, rather than printed or displayed on screens. Back to basics is about understanding what is being eaten: its provenance, how it was produced and what the implications are of buying from a retailer. There are, naturally, real markets, such as Barcelona’s La Bocqueria to choose from, but this form of food hall shopping is more generally about foodie speaking unto foodie within enclosed spaces.