Ikea and H&M are not the only innovative Scandinavian retailers making their mark around the world.
Stationery chain Ordning & Reda, originally founded in Sweden and now a a subsidiary of Denmark’s Bodum, may not have quite the same household brand awareness as their giant neighbours, but their eye-catching store design is winning friends far from home.
Since mid-September last year, the company has opened four new outlets and its online store is set to open any day.
The new stores have opened in Johannesburg, South Africa, Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport (pictured below; its ifrst dedicated airport store), Rome and Prague.
Ordning & Reda’s existing stores are all located centrally in big cities. But while each store has uniform decor and expression, reflecting the “simple” style the brand is renowned for, each store also has its own local characteristic, adapted to the market and the specific location.
Lars Moller Nielsen, MD, of Ordning & Reda, says the Rome store (above) is located in one of the older parts of the city, so the shop has bowed walls and uneven floors. In contrast, the Prague store (below) is in a brand new modern shopping centre with bright lighting and high ceilings.
Nielsen always takes a personal interest in the design and decor of each new store opened. This is partly so that he can be well acquainted with the new stores, but it is also part of the chain’s overall strategy for shop design, which is clearly easier to implement if a single central person is part of the process every time.
For its first airport store, the chain formed a franchise partnership with NK Stockholm opened its first own store at Arlanda.
“In the future, Ordning & Reda wants to open more own stores at locations such as airports or popular tourist attractions such as Tivoli, where we have had a store since April,” says Nielsen. “As a designer chain, we want to locate at sites where customers expect to find us. Either because they want to buy a gift to take home, or because they want to treat themselves with some special design.”
Ordning & Reda is growing and looking to increase its store numbers further – but Nielsen says the company is very selective with regard to location.
“We don’t want to spread ourselves too much; we’d rather concentrate on having our own stores in good cities with the right customer-base and then supplement with locations such as airports. Furthermore we’re looking to have Ordning & Reda outlets as a shop-in-shop concept, similar to the outlet we have in the Magasin department store in Copenhagen. We are currently negotiating with promising chains of department stores in Canada, Switzerland and France.”
He believes that strategy will underpin Ordning & Reda’s brand image as “an affordable, honest, and reliable luxury brand”.
Above is one of the chain’s older stores, in Stockholm, photographed during the 2011 Westfield World Retail Study Tour.
Meanwhile, the new online store has been designed to make the brand’s goods accessible by people in countries where there are not yet Ordning & Reda stores.
Today the chain has more than 40 outlets in 14 countries throughout the world.
