New Look has opened the doors to its newest store of the future concept at Westfield London. The store is a modified version of the original future model, first rolled out at its Marble Arch flagship in London less than two years ago. Over the past three years, the fashion chain has undergone significant changes to both its e-commerce channel and bricks and mortar network, taking learnings from the Marble Arch store into the next phase of its long term recovery plan, under the guidance of
CEO, Anders Kristiansen since 2013.
As part of its recovery, New Look has trialled a string of mainstream and niche technologies, including click and collect, digital body scanners, paddequins, and instore wi-fi.
The fashion chain has also upped the ante when it comes to social media, digital advertising, and e-commerce, in a bid to drive the conversation from stores to online.
The refurbishment of Westfield London saw the store undergo a whopping $1.5 million makeover, with Westfield Stratford expected to follow soon.
Like many brands, it has been a process of digital trial and error, with it hard to predict what technologies will be adopted by consumers (think Google Glass), but that has not stopped New Look from pushing the virtual and physical boundaries.
There is really nothing New Look won’t try, as the 2014 Westfield World Retail Tour found out first hand when Danny Barrasso, executive assistant to the CEO, spoke candidly of the retailer’s experiments and learnings so far.
“We’ve invested in technology significantly, some of it has worked well and some of it hasn’t,” Barrasso said of the original store of the future at Marble Arch.
“The key for us is to focus on where we have been pretty poor for the last 12 months, which is how to provide a seamless experience,” he admitted.
“We’re going to be investing a significant amount of money, and already have started this year to make sure the experience for the customer is truly seamless.”
Over the coming months New Look will introduce services and technologies including a new mobile optimised website, its first tablet and smartphone app, and Sunday and evening deliveries.
While these all sound quite standard, it will rollout a similar concept to Amazon Locker in the US, however, its collection points, or parcel lockers, will be located in some of the UK’s busiest train stations in an attempt to target fashionistas on the go.
New Look has also just completed a $2 million rollout of instore iPads for staff across 580 stores and is currently piloting customer wi-fi.
“The expansion of Amazon Locker has proven to be really successful in the US. We’re just about to launch a trial which offers same concept as Amazon Locker, but it’s at train stations. We’re investing heavily in this and and think it will be a big success,” said Barrasso.
In the quest for innovation, the company has even gone so far as to buy a 3D printer to test the idea of creating personalised, plastic jewellery instore.
“It’s not instore yet, but it opens up a whole new market for us. I don’t think it will be too long before you walk in to get something personalised that will be made within an hour instore.
“For now, it’s more of a test. We’re going to run it in our head office and build the jewellery and see if it’s good quality.”
To reserve a place on Westfield’s Asian Express Retail Study Tour next month taking in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, contact Robyn Burgess, rburgess@scentregroup.com.
To attend Westfield’s annual Breakfast Seminar Series in Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, or Sydney, click here.
