Low-cost retailing giant Kmart has one eye on a new era with the opening of its K Home concept store in Box Hill South, Melbourne.

Customers will shop in the 3000sqm site for the first time tomorrow (June 18), as the retailer looks to gauge the success of its new foray into homeware. Inside, the full range of highly successful Anko products will join items previously only available online.

Ahead of the opening, Kmart’s GM of store experience, Courtny Keeble, told Inside Retail that the concept store comes in response to the “wants and needs” of the company’s customers.

“We often get feedback in store that customers want to touch and feel products and see what it looks like outside the box, that’s what this store is really designed to do,” she said. “When we look at how furniture stores in particular run, they have samples and displays, and that’s what we’ve done, to bring together our whole range and help inspire our customers to create the homes they love.”

Keeble added that the increased floor space “makes it feel different”, giving the visual merchandising team “a little more space to play with”.

For Ben Smith, Kmart’s GM of property, the concept store will be a fact-finding mission.

“This is a really exciting location. It’s a really convenient location,” he said. “The main road out the front carries over 24,000 vehicles a day, and we’re looking forward to opening doors.”

Smith told Inside Retail that he plans to “get a good read” on the customer reaction to K Home. “[We’ll] look to replicate things that have worked well, and adjust things that haven’t,” he added.

“We’ve mapped an area of over 100,000 people in this catchment that we think will shop this area. It is a unique shopping experience for our customers, and we just don’t know quite how far people will travel for this store.”