Latest / The Retail Podcast / Inside Rituals’ New Oxford Street Flagship: Design, Mind Oasis & Retail Innovation

Transcript

Inside Rituals’ New Oxford Street Flagship: Design, Mind Oasis & Retail Innovation · The Retail Podcast

• 0:09
  Richard, lovely to see you again.
• 0:10
  Thank you for hosting me here. It's incredible, right?
• 0:13
  What a beautiful space right in the middle of Oxford St in the
• 0:17
  centre of London. The store goes live tomorrow,
• 0:21
  how you feeling? Very excited.
• 0:23
  Thanks. I mean, it was literally one
• 0:25
  year ago when I was here for the first time to look at the
• 0:28
  locations. It looked awful.
• 0:31
  I'm not allowed to say that, but.
• 0:33
  You went in here? Yeah.
• 0:34
  It's different than it it looks now and I've seen all the stores
• 0:38
  all around the world, but this time I was really amazed like,
• 0:43
  oh wow, this is really a special store.
• 0:45
  You know, we have a couple of stores.
• 0:47
  All stores are special, but this one is really special design
• 0:50
  wise. The, the space indeed, and the,
• 0:53
  and the space industry right across John Lewis, I mean Oxford
• 0:58
  St. It's like, you know, Chamzil is
• 1:00
  a Oxford St Paseo de Gracias. It's one of the the 4-5 streets
• 1:05
  where you want to be in Europe. The the thing that I love is as
• 1:09
  you come in is the sense of space and I think you would
• 1:12
  there is you got rid of the roof.
• 1:14
  Right. Yeah, we took a whole floor out
• 1:16
  actually. Wow.
• 1:17
  So if you're if if you see the story here, here was a
• 1:20
  staircase. So we moved the staircase to the
• 1:23
  left part of the of the building to enter the minor ways, which
• 1:26
  you will see later. And we removed the whole
• 1:28
  ceiling. So there you have a sort of
• 1:30
  atrium with daylight and we have one of the biggest tree that we
• 1:34
  ever built here. When you're looking at designing
• 1:37
  the path through the store, what influence is?
• 1:41
  That a lot, I mean, in the past during my studies, I was one
• 1:45
  year at an internship at the supermarket and they are the
• 1:47
  best in it. So I learnt a lot of from them.
• 1:50
  But also here I mean, when a customer comes in, I want them
• 1:54
  to surprise every time. So they they, they start with
• 1:57
  the promo table. But we all know people are right
• 2:00
  orientated even in the UK or when it drives on the left, but
• 2:03
  still right orientated store wise.
• 2:06
  So it's really like for how can we get people every time that
• 2:10
  they discover something so they see this, but in the meanwhile
• 2:13
  they see already something else and get trigger to to go further
• 2:16
  into the store. Where should we go next when in
• 2:18
  terms of going through the store and where do you recommend?
• 2:22
  Well, I mean, of course, we have here all our rituals.
• 2:24
  So with our rituals you have automatic the flow to to the
• 2:27
  back of the store. But if you're a new customer,
• 2:30
  but we've definitely will bring you to the water islands, OK?
• 2:33
  And I think you've got Anne Marie waiting for me there,
• 2:35
  right? Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:37
  So let's go. I'll go meet Anne Marie and then
• 2:39
  meet you afterwards. See you later.
• 2:40
  And thank you. So I'm privileged enough to be
• 2:43
  joined by Anne Marie for the second time.
• 2:45
  I'm making her do this because I didn't press record.
• 2:47
  Anyway, I'm joined by Anne Marie, Managing Director of UK
• 2:51
  and Ireland. And as we all know, Oxford
• 2:54
  Street is such a unique place in in British shopping history and
• 2:58
  it's all splits between tourism and people that live all come
• 3:03
  into the area. What I'm curious about is how
• 3:06
  Rituals is positioning itself in that unique way between tourism
• 3:11
  and and locals. And just to get your thoughts on
• 3:13
  it. I mean, it's fascinating for me.
• 3:14
  I've been working Oxford St for the last 20 years.
• 3:17
  So actually to bring the rituals concept in this environment to
• 3:20
  the community here is just fantastic.
• 3:23
  We definitely see a 5050 spit, as you said.
• 3:25
  And and I think most of our customers are very familiar with
• 3:29
  rituals at this stage, whether they work in London, they
• 3:31
  probably reside in a suburb. So we really encourage them from
• 3:35
  other stores to come and come and test and see our Phoenix
• 3:39
  store, which we've got some exclusive assortment.
• 3:41
  And we've also got our Mind Oasis treatment.
• 3:43
  So we definitely work with worth of mouth to, to send our
• 3:46
  community in here to get the full experience.
• 3:48
  We also have a really strong CRM database across the UK and
• 3:51
  Ireland market. So we've reached out to umm, our
• 3:54
  loyal customers through that. And, and I think it's just a
• 3:57
  really lovely space on Oxford St.
• 3:59
  To slow down for a moment, we're all very busy, particularly in
• 4:02
  London and and yeah, and come down and have a little moment to
• 4:05
  yourself. I'm super lucky because I've got
• 4:07
  a chance to experience the Mind Oasis in Paris when you had it
• 4:11
  for the Olympics. I'm curious.
• 4:13
  I I think you said it's already sold out for the first five
• 4:16
  days. Right, Yes, absolutely.
• 4:17
  I think all this weekend organically our customers have
• 4:20
  either been passing our windows or been online and this they've
• 4:23
  heard about us. So definitely our loyal
• 4:25
  customers are really eager to experience the Mind Oasis.
• 4:27
  So yeah, we're totally booked out.
• 4:28
  Yeah. And hopefully we will will be
• 4:30
  for the rest of the year. We're here at one of your
• 4:32
  islands. What's the name of this island?
• 4:33
  This is our water island, so this is apparently.
• 4:36
  From a from a customer journey perspective, this is where the
• 4:40
  relationship will start with rituals. 100% So if you've never
• 4:43
  been to rituals, you know when once we welcome any of our
• 4:46
  customers into the store, we really encourage them to come to
• 4:49
  the water island as a starting point.
• 4:51
  So we can explain our kind of three-step ritual routine where
• 4:54
  we start off with, I want some of our tour products, uh, across
• 4:59
  all of our Fr fragrances. So depending on what your
• 5:01
  fragrance preference is, we will then start off with a using our
• 5:05
  body scrub on a hand massage. So there we cleanse and we clean
• 5:09
  your hands down. Then we work with our famous
• 5:11
  shower foam, which is just absolutely exquisite.
• 5:14
  It's like clouds. Oh wow.
• 5:16
  And and then we finish it off with a body cream.
• 5:19
  So afterwards you'll not only have tested our fragrance, but
• 5:21
  you'll understand what our how luxurious our products are and
• 5:25
  you're left with just beautiful hands after.
• 5:27
  Oh wow. So and sorry, I was going to say
• 5:30
  and then also through that you'll you know, you'll be you
• 5:32
  can talk to our teams and they'll educate you on on our
• 5:35
  further assortments so that you'll kind of understand the
• 5:37
  world of rituals better. And just yeah, just to
• 5:39
  experience the rest store. And at this time of the year, we
• 5:42
  have our famous advent. Calendar.
• 5:44
  Advent calendar. I've got my eye on one of those.
• 5:45
  We've got to take. Go home.
• 5:46
  I can't go home without. Plenty tougher.
• 5:48
  Yeah, over there, which is actually as you come in what,
• 5:51
  what role does technology play in, in physical retail for you?
• 5:54
  Yeah. I mean, I think it's essential
• 5:56
  to move forward with. Absolutely.
• 5:58
  I think that we have a lovely balance between that because
• 6:01
  we're very clear that our customers love to come to our
• 6:04
  stores for the experience and, and experience the fragrance and
• 6:07
  the service and the environment. However, of course we know that
• 6:11
  the future is technology and we've got our fantastic mind
• 6:15
  Oasis that is umm, the future of retail, I think.
• 6:18
  And then in the background, obviously to operate, our stores
• 6:21
  are a very, very, very big fast retailer in terms of volume.
• 6:25
  So we need to make sure that our technology in the background is
• 6:28
  servicing the operations of the store.
• 6:29
  So definitely it's the future of retail in in every angle.
• 6:33
  Final question, a tradition that we have on the show, we we look
• 6:35
  to empower female leaders. Obviously as the managing
• 6:38
  director, if you could go back to the earlier younger version
• 6:42
  of yourself, what advice would you give to a, a, a, you know,
• 6:45
  maybe someone who's on the shop floor who does want to go to
• 6:49
  head office and who does want to go?
• 6:50
  Just curious if you had some words of wisdom for for a
• 6:53
  younger you. You know, I do reflect on that
• 6:55
  sometimes because people ask me and I think the one thing that
• 6:58
  maybe got to me where I am, whether in my career or just,
• 7:01
  you know, in myself, is that I was really open to every
• 7:04
  opportunity. I looked at it as an opportunity
• 7:07
  and I was, you know, I travelled a lot.
• 7:08
  I, I worked in many different countries.
• 7:10
  So I understood many different cultures.
• 7:12
  And I think that was placed me very well to lead a strong team
• 7:16
  from, you know, different parts of the world, et cetera, that I
• 7:18
  kind of understood the dynamics of what different cultures bring
• 7:21
  to a team. So I think just to con for other
• 7:24
  people to be open to look at every opportunity and every
• 7:28
  challenge, every challenge as an opportunity, I should say, and
• 7:31
  just stay positive. Life is life is good and be
• 7:35
  happy along the way. Enjoy the journey.
• 7:37
  Anne Marie, that's wonderful. Thank you ever so much for
• 7:39
  giving up the time and showing me this beautiful part of your
• 7:42
  store. I'm going to go back to Richard
• 7:43
  and we're going to continue the tour.
• 7:45
  Thank. You so much lovely to.
• 7:46
  Talk to you, Richard. What an incredible space you've
• 7:49
  got here. I remember one of the feelings I
• 7:51
  had as I went up the stairs in Paris, and here we're coming
• 7:55
  down the stairs. But that's change of energy,
• 7:58
  right? The change of lighting, the
• 8:00
  change of product as in the materials that you use, describe
• 8:04
  for those who obviously who haven't been yet described that
• 8:07
  what was that design? Well, this is the mind Oasis, we
• 8:11
  call it the future of well-being.
• 8:13
  And what we want to achieve is that you come from the busy
• 8:16
  street or shopping mall, in this case the street, Oxford Street,
• 8:20
  I mean the most busiest St in all UK.
• 8:23
  And moment you, like you said, you come down and you have a
• 8:26
  sort of sync theory of of incredible Oasis.
• 8:32
  And it's in the basement, very quite high ceiling for a
• 8:35
  basement and all use natural colours and all the same family
• 8:39
  colours. As you can see, it's not bright
• 8:43
  colours all very to make sure that you really get in a slower
• 8:47
  pace pace and you feel it directly.
• 8:51
  If you come down, people start to whisper, you know, in, in,
• 8:54
  in, upstairs in the store. People are like, enthusiastic
• 8:58
  and like and the moment they come up the stairs they start
• 9:02
  and that's actually what we really want to achieve.
• 9:04
  Of course, with the mind Oasis that people take, take a moment
• 9:08
  of it for themselves and a moment of relaxing because
• 9:11
  that's in the end what we want to achieve.
• 9:13
  Got a genius team behind you A. Very talented team, Yeah.
• 9:17
  And and it's like a we, we learn every time.
• 9:20
  It's our every time. And we do that with the stores
• 9:22
  already. I mean, this is the store number
• 9:24
  almost more than 1400 stores, but still every time we see we
• 9:28
  are very critical, how can we make it better?
• 9:30
  So the same we do with the Minds Oasis, Yeah, how can we make it
• 9:33
  even better? So if you see the the first
• 9:36
  minds always that we built in the House of Rituals as
• 9:38
  Amsterdam, it's still the same look.
• 9:40
  I feel very recognisable. But there are a lot of small
• 9:43
  details that we made difference and we learn on the way.
• 9:46
  And it's also here and like the small thing, like the black
• 9:49
  frames are now wooden frames and it has completely different look
• 9:53
  I feel. One of the things I wanted to
• 9:55
  ask you before, which you wouldn't get done, what's your
• 9:58
  view on technology and the physical retail world?
• 10:01
  What's the relationship? Well, I mean, there are
• 10:03
  different with technology. I mean, technology sometimes is
• 10:06
  for a lot of people screens. Yeah, and and we have screens.
• 10:09
  But I know the first time I had a meeting with our suppliers,
• 10:12
  the first thing I said, I hate screens.
• 10:15
  So it was a good start. But I think it has to add
• 10:19
  something, you know, not just on the sake of having screens or
• 10:22
  having technology, but if you see for example, here the POTS,
• 10:26
  the brain massage, that's one big piece of technology, but you
• 10:30
  don't see it, you don't feel it, you don't see it.
• 10:32
  And that's that's, I think, how technology should work.
• 10:36
  Not visible, but it works. It's like a car.
• 10:40
  And I don't most people don't care about the engine.
• 10:42
  Yeah. They don't know how the engine
• 10:44
  work. As long as it works and you
• 10:45
  don't hear it. Yeah, but it's always working.
• 10:48
  Yeah, no, absolutely. And and there's another thing
• 10:50
  you mentioned to me and I was speaking to Anne Marie.
• 10:52
  And I'm just curious from a design perspective, when you're
• 10:55
  talking briefing your team, this sense of community and how
• 10:59
  retail has to be relevant for, for the next 5 years is about
• 11:03
  relevance and community and experience.
• 11:06
  Again, you're doing like you're all the all the boxes, but
• 11:09
  what's the thinking behind that? Well, we'll, this is a premium
• 11:12
  store. So in most, in most cities, we
• 11:14
  want to build premium stores and we use that as the hub for our
• 11:17
  community got all the stores around it.
• 11:20
  So also here now in, in London, everywhere, we stimulate you to
• 11:24
  come to this store. So it's not the, the other store
• 11:27
  that we have a store here 10 minutes, 50 minutes on also on
• 11:29
  Oxford St. It's not that they don't feel
• 11:32
  themselves as a competitor. No, they are also part of
• 11:35
  building the community of London.
• 11:37
  So we want to use those premium stores really as a community hub
• 11:41
  and the mind arises, of course, they're perfect example for
• 11:44
  that. Final question, What's your
• 11:47
  favourite part of the store? What you What's the one thing if
• 11:50
  you had to choose just one thing?
• 11:54
  Well, I count 2 things. I I love the story.
• 11:57
  I the the show front is amazing, especially in the evening with
• 12:01
  the LED lights on it. It's very classical, but also
• 12:04
  very modern. Yeah, very delicate.
• 12:07
  So I really love it and and it's it's hard to to jump out in the
• 12:11
  in the in the massive Venice of of Oxford Street.
• 12:15
  And I love the moment I walk from the step from the store
• 12:18
  into the my Oasis. The the stairs is the most is
• 12:21
  the nice part because you every time you go down, you feel like
• 12:25
  yeah, your space goes down. Yeah, it's a definite feeling.
• 12:28
  And I know I said it was the last question, but you reminded
• 12:30
  me upstairs in terms of the fixtures that you've got, I
• 12:33
  noticed at the back of the store you've actually got a completely
• 12:37
  different type of fixture, one that's maybe resembling
• 12:40
  someone's home. Yeah, I'm just, well, what's the
• 12:43
  thinking behind that element? In in general, you see it also
• 12:45
  with the lightning in the store. You always want to create a sort
• 12:49
  of home feeling. Yeah, You know what I don't like
• 12:51
  is that you use completely different lights and then you're
• 12:55
  you're at home with your products and it looks completely
• 12:58
  different. So we really want to make people
• 13:01
  feel at home and that it feels like home.
• 13:03
  So the the dark woods and what we've often hear like where can
• 13:09
  I get this? The floor?
• 13:11
  Because I love it. I won't have it at home.
• 13:13
  So that warmth that you also have at home, at least I hope
• 13:16
  for most people. We also want to create that in
• 13:19
  our store. Yeah, and it does have that,
• 13:21
  that sort of uncanny sense of familiarity, think lighting 100%
• 13:26
  is beautiful in the store is such an important.
• 13:29
  I think it's always valued. Undervalued.
• 13:31
  Absolutely. And people then understand that
• 13:33
  even in this space, when we came in, he actually on the other
• 13:35
  side, he was moving the the details.
• 13:38
  Richard, thank you so much for allowing me to come the official
• 13:41
  opening. This will go out today.
• 13:43
  So if you're in Oxford Street or in any part of London, come
• 13:48
  down. Although to be fair, the Mind
• 13:49
  Oasis is booked for the next 5 days but always.
• 13:52
  Good to see you already. Yeah, make a make a reservation.
• 13:54
  Yeah, make you make your reservation because it's the, I
• 13:57
  think the best value for money experience that you're going to
• 14:00
  have for half an hour of disconnection there.
• 14:03
  I I don't think there's anything like that.
• 14:05
  But anyway, Richard, thank you so much.
• 14:07
  Nice pleasure. We're here.
• 14:08
  Thank you.