Latest / The Retail Podcast / Part 2 Top 10 Most Innovative Retail Stores in the World | From Pop Mart to Louis Vuitton

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Part 2 Top 10 Most Innovative Retail Stores in the World | From Pop Mart to Louis Vuitton · The Retail Podcast

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  Beautiful design, a real again, focus on storytelling, on
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  bringing the world of coffee to life with like master classes in
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  the coffee area and by far and away my favourite area, which I,
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  I spent, you know, a good hour in there is the basement lounge.
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  We're sort of heading into the world of Asian retail.
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  It's, it's it's really clear that that retail in Asia is
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  absolutely laser focused on what I call, I call it gens alpha
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  because it's both Gen Z and Gen alpha together.
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  It's got to be shareable. It's, it's designed for social
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  media Pot Mart, an absolute retail phenomenon around the
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  world. La Boo Boo.
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  The numbers. I mean, you know, you're talking
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  about is, is it making money? It's it's a phenomenon in terms
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  of the money that is making blind box collectibles, you
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  know, pot Mart stores popping up around the world.
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  But this is by far and away the absolute jewel in the crown for
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  Pop Mart. And it's in Icon Siam in
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  Bangkok. Yeah, designed by X Plus Living
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  that are a fantastic, amazing kind of fantasy retail design
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  agency. They've done some of the most
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  amazing concepts and it's just wonderful because it's it's a
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  super, super Instagrammable and photogenic.
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  It's got selfie spots everywhere.
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  It's also got the kind of nod to the locality.
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  One of the big things when people talk about retail spaces
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  is, is, you know, how do you create a sense of place that's
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  unique to a location? And so the actual store design,
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  the interior of it is designed to be wibbly and wobbly, a bit
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  like the the river that runs through Bangkok.
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  You have, you know, the Thai royal motifs with the, with the
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  Lucy model there so that you can take selfies.
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  And of course, the big thing that they've added is a Cafe.
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  It's this addition of hospitality onto the traditional
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  retail offer where you can actually eat the Pop Mart
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  characters. So you've got little liboo boos
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  on, you know, Gelato sticks and you know, little, little kind of
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  steamed sushi buns. Absolutely designed for social
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  media shareability. Really fun, really playful, just
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  wonderful. Nespresso was the thing that
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  probably got the biggest column inches in New York this year for
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  NRF. Nespresso have been on an
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  absolute roll over the past year.
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  They've opened just a beautiful store in the Malay in Paris.
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  They did a lovely boutique and Covent Garden.
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  But this is the absolute jewel in the crown in the Flatiron
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  district, which again is just, it's a really, really nice
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  shopping district. Flatiron is really kind of on a
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  roll, you know, Union Square, you've got Petco, you've got the
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  Crate&barrel, you know, all of the stuff that's happening.
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  Aritzia Flagship again, it really kind of, it's a lovely
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  new anchor to the area and it's huge and wonderful.
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  I mean, just beautiful design. A real again, focus on
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  storytelling, on bringing the world of coffee to life with
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  like master classes in the coffee area.
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  And by far and away my favourite area, which I, I spent, you
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  know, a good hour in there is the basement lounge where you
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  make yourself free coffees. You can listen to vinyl.
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  And then in the evening, a secret door opens up into a
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  secret Speakeasy after 5:00 wedding coffee based mocktails
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  way of creating more reasons to come.
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  I mean, one of the big questions of course, with with running a
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  store is how do you maximise trading through the day?
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  And particularly with coffee retail, it's like it's seen as
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  daytime, you know, it's breakfast and lunch and
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  afternoon. How do you create something for
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  the evening? And what they're doing here is
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  creating this evening Speakeasy approach, which I just thought
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  was a a really nice little catch.
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  I love this thought it was amazing.
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  Like the, the, the, the, the little table in the middle.
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  They've got these little, they create the scent pouches where
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  you squish them and the scent comes out to you, which I
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  thought was just a genius way of bringing coffee to life, which,
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  you know, even saying that, how'd you bring coffee to life?
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  They've done a phenomenal job of that.
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  Well, it's the world of what I often say about how do you, how
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  do you innovate in retail is to look at other sectors and then
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  to say, if if I was a beauty retailer, how would I do coffee?
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  And of course, beauty retailers have been doing scent notes for
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  for Death. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  And what they've done is they said, why don't we take that
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  beauty approach and put it to coffee, which is just, it's a
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  really simple little, you know, way of creating something that's
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  a little bit unique. I I just don't think you can
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  talk about retail innovation without talking about what
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  Restoration Hardware have been doing over the last 1015.
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  Amazing. Jaw-dropping.
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  I mean, you know, every year they're doing something amazing.
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  You know, I'm based out in the Cotswolds and I have RH England,
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  which is in the stately home of of a no park.
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  That was their first year of store, just quite simply the
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  most astonishing retail retail experience.
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  This was their latest one, years of construction, the old
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  Abercrombie and Fitch store, which was an amazing store on
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  the Champs Elysees spent a fortune redoing it.
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  And it's just the ultimate aspirational lifestyle retail
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  again with hospitality underpinning the entire
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  experience. So you've got 2 restaurants, but
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  you've also got this wonderful bar, which I particularly like
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  because the entire design of the bar is basically filled with
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  beautiful photography of all their galleries around the
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  world. And you can actually see the
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  left hand picture that that that stately home is the RH England
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  in the Cotswolds. You know, it's just a fabulous
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  piece of visual storytelling, of experience, of seductive
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  lifestyle retailing. It's ultra luxury, of course,
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  but you know, it is really just a benchmark of what amazing
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  retail looks like. So this was this was the reason
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  that I mentioned the Hoff in particular.
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  Yeah, because the founder of Hoff, Fran Marcheira, he wrote a
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  wonderful reply to my top 10 on LinkedIn telling me the story of
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  of how he developed the the Hoff and why.
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  And he told me that he had been in Korea two years ago to meet
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  the founder of Gentle Monster. And Hancock Kim had said that he
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  was planning to open an ultimate Gentle Monster house nowhere
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  flagship, which would combine their head office as well.
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  And they were building this 14 story building and they'd open
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  the ultimate retail experience. So Fran came back to Madrid, He
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  heard that this unit had become available, this bigger unit.
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  He decided to close his very profitable Madrid store and
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  reopen the flagship. But it was all most entirely
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  influenced by this passion that Gentle Monster have had to
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  reinvent retail as a kind of seductive art, immersive
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  experience. Yeah, he's just going beyond.
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  And it's where every store is different.
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  Every store is unique, you know, they are not spending money on
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  advertising in the traditional way because the entire world who
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  visit the stores are advertising it for them.
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  Gentle Monster, you know, they don't have a mannequin
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  department, they have a robot department where they are making
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  these amazing interactive immersive robots.
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  And so house nowhere, it's the 4th house nowhere to open.
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  The second one in Seoul, This is in the Brooklyn of Seoul.
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  And as you can see from the building on the bottom left, 14
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  stories, it combines the head office of Gentle Monster with
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  this amazing retail experience. You see this giant dashing
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  sculpture. It actually breathes.
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  So you can see it going, oh, wow.
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  And it's really a sort of concept department store.
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  You know, Gentle Monster sells sunglasses, but this is also
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  Tambourans, their beauty brand. There's a new accessories brand
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  called a Tissue. And then they have this
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  astonishing pastry concept called New Decay, which is like
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  a tea shop cafe at the same time.
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  So it's a kind of modern concept department store that is every
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  single place you look isn't is a, you know, is a photo
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  opportunity and deliberately designed as a photo opportunity.
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  And the whole world is talking about Gentle monster.
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  No one walks into a gentle Monster store without going wow.
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  It is the ultimate example of surprise and delight in retail.
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  And they're doing something different in every store and
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  they're constantly changing as well.
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  So the current incarnation is actually a sort of Formula One
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  installation that's got Mickey Mouse with a giant Mickey Mouse
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  in Formula One costume. You know, it's art meets retail.
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  It's constantly changing pop up. I know that when we were in New
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  York, you know, the gentle Monster in Soho was closed for
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  refurbishment because again, you know, they open an amazing
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  store. But after a year, you know, they
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  think right, time to do something different, time to
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  freshen it up. So again, it's the new model of
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  what we expect from retail. And the thing that's most
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  incredible for me, they're not #1 they're #2 So there's a big
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  question in my mind, who is number 1?
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  Yeah, I just, I mean, look, it's luxury.
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  And look, they've got LVMH budgets and a lot of people will
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  say, you know, look, it's not real retail.
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  But the reason I show this, and the reason I put it at #1 is
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  because for the past few years, Louis Vuitton have been wowing
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  the world not just with retail, but with a hoarding.
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  So it first started on the Charles Alizee where they closed
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  up the building. That's going to be whatever it's
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  going to be the Louis Vuitton hotel, the flagship putting this
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  enormous trunk hoarding, which was incredible.
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  And then and then New York said we can do better.
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  And they've got, you know, a 200 foot series of trunk hoardings
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  on 5th Ave, which almost like using projection mapping for
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  Christmas, you know, Christmas windows.
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  It's become the new icon on 5th Ave.
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  And then you think, how on earth can you top that?
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  And so Louis Vuitton again over in Asia, because as I said, you
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  know, Asia is absolutely driving retail innovation.
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  They've cut a cruise ship on the streets of Shanghai and turned
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  into a retail exhibition, hospitality space, immersive
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  storytelling. It's just fabulous.
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  You know, it's so you know, OMA, world famous architects
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  designing this. It's supposed to look halfway
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  between an ocean cruise line or in a Louis Vuitton trunk.
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  It's got digital activation. So the seamless, you know, so
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  that so the way they manage the experience is all done through
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  WeChat. So, you know, it's frictionless
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  experience. You move through ten of these
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  storytelling rooms that are telling different stories around
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  the craftsmanship of Louis Vuitton.
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  Again, every single space is a photo opportunity.
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  This is marketing wrapped up into retail as well.
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  Then they have a retail store with unique products and then a
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  Maxine Frederique Patisserie Cafe restaurant.
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  And if that wasn't enough, you can actually sit out on the deck
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  and watch a vintage movies in the evening as well.
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  As I said, you know, I keep thinking retail can't get more
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  innovative every year and every year I'm proved wrong and and
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  you know, I challenge anyone to find anything that's more wow
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  than the living by the tool. I think, yeah, I mean, it's
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  interesting timing in terms of when, when, when.
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  I'm curious who didn't make your top ten list.
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  And I do want to ask you about that, but I'm just looking at
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  time thinking, OK, all right, but I have to ask you who is
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  who? Give me one.
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  Give me one stall that didn't make your top ten that you were
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  wowed by. So the Zara Serrano that, that
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  that Zara flagship is absolutely world class, You know, totally
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  read, totally read on the store. But they've also put this put
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  this unique concept called the apartment, which they did in the
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  pop up store in Paris, which is basically combining Zara home
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  with fashion and with food as well at the same time, a fully
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  furnished apartment. It's just fabulous elevation.
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  And I, I really agonised about whether to put that in or not,
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  that I wanted to put the value example of lefties in from a,
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  from a more sort of practical retail perspective.
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  Matthew, I feel like I've literally been around the world.
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  Thank you so much for giving up your time and being with us and
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  sharing. It's a real pleasure.
• 11:39
  Thank you for inviting me, Alex.