Liquid Retail, Part 5: Format Fluidity

A 6-part guide to the key trends changing the face of retail
Featured in A1 Retail Magazine

Part 5: Format Fluidity

Liquid retail is the fluid approach retailers need to adopt to survive and thrive.

By Emma Gullick, Associate Creative Director at design agency Phoenix Wharf

Location, Location, Location

The internet brought the high street directly into people’s homes – a revolution that made goods available to all, regardless of location. Growth still favours digital channels, with Statista.com expecting the UK’s final 2019 online figure to account for around 19% of all sales, one of the highest penetration rates in Europe. Whilst bricks-and-mortar retailing in certain sectors has been decimated by online purchasing - think record shops and travel agents – there are survivors; those with not only joined-up strategies, but the greatest willingness to adapt to and successfully embed the internet’s experimental spirit into their physical portfolios, especially where format is concerned.

Big Gets Little

IKEA, known for its huge-scale out-of-town megastores, is testing new ways to get closer to its customers, including Planning Studios and a more accessible city centre format for orders and collections. John Lewis & Partners, meanwhile, opened a dedicated Click & Collect store at St. Pancras International train station, cleverly upselling other products within the small space. Whether pop-up or permanent, these new formats bring brands directly to the customer, answering convenience woes with small store footprints in hub locations.

Hitting the Hotspots

Major brands who would once never have been spotted outside premium store environments are exploring new ways to bring products directly to the people as the pop-up concept matures. Festivals such as Coachella in the States offer a golden brand performance test-ground for fashion and beauty brands. YSL’s ‘beauty station’ format, for example, offered beauty top-ups in the heart of Palm Springs in a gas station format, directly en route to the festival. Outwear apparel brand The North Face, meanwhile, met its customers even more literally when it deployed a pop-up in the Italian Dolomites, housing eight collectors’ items worn during ‘pinnacle moments’ and donated by leading athletes and adventurers, later auctioned for a charity supporting Dolomites mountain guides.

Two-way Traffic

Growth isn’t only moving offline to online. New retail formats appearing on the high street show how retailers who’ve grown up online see the appeal of physical stores. None more notably than Amazon’s new US bookstores, where customers can be sold additional Amazon products, particularly Amazon Prime. Books are organized into groupings that will be familiar to online customers - ‘Page Turners: Books Kindle Readers Finish in 3 Days or Less’ - for example. Many books are displayed front-facing with reviews below, showing not just a price-based, hard-sell approach, but proving the venture has also learnt lessons of trust and credibility from more established booksellers.