Dixons Add stores get new look

Everybody’s a competitor” says Jean Charretteur, managing director of Dixons travel, the on-the-move arm of electricals giant Dixons. As he says this, he glances around the airside travel offer of Gatwick’s North Terminal and within a stone’s throw are the usual suspects. There’s the Monsoon outlet, there’s WHSmiths, there’s Boots and, oh yes, just to break things up a little, there’s a Lacoste shop – a relatively recent arrival. 

On the face of it, none of them would seem obvious rivals for the well-heeled types who might be prepared to part with a couple of hundred notes for a pair of Dr Dre’s fashionable looking headphones. But then that’s not really the point. As Charretteur points out, every retailer is a potential diverter of airport retail spend, given that time is inevitably limited for those passing through this area en route, sooner or perhaps a little later, to the departure gate.

This should be the primary consideration for any retailer that decides running a small shop in an airport is a good idea. Time really is short and there are a number of possible distractions from your store, so position within the concourse assumes a far greater importance than might be the case on a normal high street.

You are also up against what might be termed airport distress retailers – purveyors of books, newspapers and travel sickness tablets – all vying for attention and likely to be the first port of call.

Catch it, if you can

With all of this in mind, Dixons has just revamped its travel accessories store in the terminal – there is also a Dixons store at the other end of the airside terminal with the usual range of cameras, computers and suchlike. This one is dubbed Add and the blueprint was originally created by design consultancy Fitch for Dixons’ accessories store in Heathrow’s Terminal 5 when it opened in 2008. That, however, was then and Terminal 5 is a somewhat different beast from the North Terminal at Gatwick.

Size matters, and Terminal 5 is truly akin to an upper mid-market or luxury shopping mall – something that Gatwick, even in its better moments, is not. That said, the North Terminal is the more upscale part of the airport and is the point through that many business travellers tend to pass.

Like Terminal 5, however, the notion of two stores from the same retailer within a relatively short distance of each other, but each offering slightly different ranges, is not as odd as it might seem. “Every time we’ve got a ‘double-hit’ [ie, two units in one travel location] there is no cannibalisation of sales,” says Charretteur. Or in other words, shopping patterns in an airport terminal tend to be very local.

Dixons’ remodelled travel accessories shop has had its product mix, as well as its appearance, considerably altered – the last time this was done was 2007 – meaning that an overhaul of the space was probably overdue.

Up in the air

First things first, though. This is a very small space and it’s a moot point whether it should even be referred to as a shop as some might be more inclined to call it a kiosk.  And at around 430 sq ft and given its location – free-standing in the middle of the concourse – there would be some justification. Unlike the majority of kiosks, however, it’s actually quite hard to miss this one.

The reason is simple. It’s very high and the Add name can be seen from almost any point as you emerge from security, adjusting the belt that you’ve been told to remove. Add is in fact located in what might be termed a secondary area, but its mid-concourse position and height mean that this is not necessarily the disadvantage that it might at first appear.

In terms of use of colour, this is a long distance from the Dixons store at the other end of the terminal with its bright red-and-white logo. Instead, Add boasts a rainbow-like canopy with the Add logo being lower case white reversed out from black with the subtext ‘accessories for life’.

At this point it’s perhaps worth observing that the word ‘accessories’ in this context would normally mean a few cables, some memory cards and perhaps a few low-end headphones.

This is not what the Add shopper will confront. Charretteur says that the growth in over-the-ear headphone sets has virtually created a new category from scratch over the last couple of years. This is reflected in the range that is offered, with Bose, Dr Dre and others all on offer. Then there are the tablets – electronic ones, that is. Again, not only is this is a growth category, but like expensive headphones it has appeared seemingly from nowhere to become a major revenue earner for technology retailers.

Up, up and away

At the front of the shop-kiosk there is a menu that tells the shopper what to expect. This does make things simple, although it is worth pointing out that this is such a modestly sized space that shoppers will probably see everything without much trouble anyway.

Which brings in the point of how do you get a lot of merchandise into a small, oval space. The solution that Dixons has arrived at is to create what a spokesman calls “a permanent pop-up shop”. While this may sound like a contradiction in terms, what is really meant is that many of the features that you’d expect of a temporary store have been incorporated in the design of this space.

For a start there’s the curtain. This is a wrap round metal device that encloses the whole of the shop when it’s not open – essential give the nature of the stock. When this is rolled back, the shop is like an oversized hand grenade – with a core and pieces that explode outwards. In practice, this means that the two free-standing display units are on wheels and are rolled out from the main body of the structure to the edge the tramline followed by the curtain. In this way, the unit is made to fill the space and all that’s needed is for two overhead cables to be connected and the shop is ready to trade.

It’s a simple and elegant answer to the problem of maximising the use that can be made of a modest and non- linear retail space. It also provides Dixons with another arrow in its quiver that can be used when two stores, serving different functions, are deployed in the same shopping arena. Charretteur says that more Adds will be appearing in other airports and that negotiations to effect this are in hand.

It also shows that very small can still be beautiful in a world that seems hell-bent on offering ever-larger stores.