Snap happy

The well-worn cliché ‘it’s been a rollercoaster ride’ might almost have been invented for camera retailer Jessops, given its performance over the last couple of years. At the beginning of 2010, following what might be kindly described as a period of indifferent management, it was delisted from the London Stock Exchange and under private ownership things have moved forward.

Practices changed and a strong emphasis was placed on training and service, according to chief executive Trevor Moore. The net outcome was a 3% Christmas like-for-like sales improvement at a time when many others were licking their wounds.

A cynic might of course remark that an increase on a relatively low figure is more readily achievable than if you happen to be faced by large numbers. But whether this is the case or not, at the beginning of 2011 the retailer appeared to be pointing in the right direction. The estate had been reduced from 300 stores to 200 and an ongoing refurbishment strategy replacing the traditional Jessops blue fascia – with a new format featuring a black interior and exterior – seems to be working.

“We’ve got the estate to the right size for the business, where all of the stores are making a contribution. We now generate as much in the way of sales with 200 stores as we did with 300,” says Moore. He adds that sales remain in “positive territory”, although he declines to say by how much, ahead of an announcement in May. 

Extra developments

The recovery, however, continues to develop. Since last week there has been an additional string to the Jessops bow as it unveiled a new format, dubbed a ‘centre of excellence’, in Birmingham. And at this point a note perhaps. At 4,000 sq ft, this is the biggest store that Jessops operates; the average store is about the 1,000 sq ft mark, and therefore, you might imagine it would be something special and equally that it would be in a special location. 

By definition, Jessops is a destination store. Shoppers don’t arrive on a whim, but whichever way you cut it, the Birmingham branch is in a distinctly off-pitch location, close to House of Fraser, but still some distance from the main shopping drag. Nonetheless, a week ago, people were streaming past the store, using Temple Row as a cut through, which must be to the retailer’s benefit.

Those pausing to take a leaflet from the member of staff positioned outside the shop would have noticed the long black exterior and, if they had any memory for such things, might have noticed that the entrance had been widened. Many seemed tempted to look inside and for those doing so, the initial impression would have been of a long space entered by some steps down, making the first couple of metres just inside the entrance act almost as a viewing platform for the interior.

Through the looking glass

Glancing beyond this, the word Jessops may be over the door, but this interior is conspicuously different from what can be seen elsewhere in the chain and, to an extent, this is the outcome of the store’s atypical internal geography. Marketing and ecommerce director Sean Emmett says that the initial thinking behind the creation of the ‘black’ format was to modernise and “to make Jessops about more than just selling cameras”.

Maybe so, but the whole of the front of this store is about cameras with branded shop-in-shops to the right, Nikon, Sony and Canon, and Jessops own-buy ranges in the mid-shop across to the left. Yet what has been done appeals as the camera offer has been, in effect zoned, so that if you’re a digital novice there are basic cameras, albeit brightly coloured, on a mid-shop gondola, while further in there are walls and mid-shop equipment filled with more serious equipment.

There is also something of an arms race in terms of in-store design between the three branded camera areas, all of which have put their best foot forward with Canon and Nikon both producing bespoke shopfits for this store. The Sony area is a replication of a design produced by design consultancy Daziel + Pow last year that uses high-end materials including white Corian tabletops and black ash.

Stray further into the store and you begin to understand what Emmett is talking about. David Dalziel, creative director at Dalziel + Pow – which also designed the Jessops Brum interior – says that one of the features of this store is the zoning of the entire, long and narrow floor.

He shows a few snaps of the shop before it received its makeover and it was something of a tired-looking ballroom. There is no evidence of this now and looking through the shop, the eye is caught by signs stating ‘Studio’, ‘Bag Room’ and ‘Create’. Each is intended to provide an easy-to-understand clue about the area it is within and to ensure that shoppers grasp that this is indeed about more than shifting the latest camera, although this does remain at the heart of things.

The multichannel mix

They also make the business of looking at Jessops.com and then coming into the store more straightforward. Online business at Jessops has rocketed over the last 12 months under Emmett’s guidance, rising from about 7% of the total business to a little under 30%. Moore says: “What we’ve seen is a change in the way that customers shop. They will check things out online and then they do come in and shop with us. This means that we’ve got to have a very strong emphasis on service delivery. We’ve invested more time into staff training over the last year than we had in the previous seven.”

Throughout the store, there are large format graphics, ranging from a sylvan glade, for the bag room (which is less a room and rather more of a side-arm projecting from the main shop), to a fashion shot in which a yellow-jerseyed woman takes pictures using a digital SLR camera. The point, as Emmett says, is to ensure that the store environment is efficient and helpful, but not overly techy and clinical.

There’s even a counter where shoppers can have their new camera set up and running before leaving the shop, aided by one of the many staff on duty. This is an interesting and engaging shop environment and one that will be reproduced in Manchester within the next couple of months. It will also serve as an exemplar for the rest of the chain with a diluted version being taken more generally across smaller stores over time.

Jessops would appear to be on the road to recovery and Moore and Emmett’s enthusiasm is palpable. Not every Jessops will end up looking like the one in Birmingham, but this really does act as a flagship, pointing the way for others.