Comment: Primark or Topshop? The two-speed store design economy

In-store screens or not? The choice is up to the individual retailer, but being half-hearted is really not an option.

How many screens does it take to make a store engaging and interesting to shoppers? At one point, in the not so distant past, the answer would have been a few, as long as they were iPads and were attached to stalks so that customers could play with them. If there were a few large format touchscreens, then so much the better.

Those halcyon days seem almost naïve in the context of today’s multi-media omnichannel (sorry) world. Now large format, high definition screens are no longer the preserve of Times Square or Piccadilly Circus, but instead are likely to be encountered almost anywhere. And where expectations about content have also been raised. It’s no longer enough to have a few static images that change from time to time. Now slick production values and constant change are the norm and to really turn heads there probably has to be something more on top of this. Primark is a case in point. This is a retailer that is at the lower end of the price scale with an offer that might fairly be described as ‘cheap’.

Yet visit any of its newer large stores, Tottenham Court Road or the Düsseldorf branch perhaps, and there are screens everywhere. When quizzed about the need for this back in 2012 when the Tottenham Court Road store opened, Paul Marchant, CEO, opined that screens were being put into the store “because we have to”. It’s a maxim that seems to have been followed by Argos in its futuristic-looking store on London’s Old Street, a store environment that seems to have little other than screens and brightly coloured light-boxes.

Now contrast this with, say, Topshop, which has largely eschewed techno-wizardry, choosing instead to rely upon beguiling visual merchandising to put its case. It’s equally attractive and while the temptation would be to assume that putting lots of screens in a store would be more expensive than good old-fashioned VM, an eye-catching display takes time to create and will involve equal commitment (and probably cash) on the part of the retailer.

We are in the grip therefore of a two-speed retail design revolution. Use technology, but use it to good effect in a way that will demand that it is looked at, or don’t use it at all. The thing is, a bit like the current experience of mid-market fashion retailers, don’t get caught foundering in the middle, no good will come of this.