Jessops has high hopes for its new-look London store

By any standards, the past 12 months have been tough for Jessops. This week it revealed a £6m half-year loss and a 4.5 per cent fall in like-for-like sales in the six months to the end of March. Ominously, the company warned that while talks with its lenders are ongoing, “shareholders are unlikely to realise any value from their equity”.

The company has been working hard to cut costs, in February closing 21 stores and cutting the head office headcount by 50 to 125. “We have reduced costs wherever possible, worked closely with suppliers and explored a range of options to deliver a sustainable future for Jessops,” said executive chairman David Adams.

Against this backdrop, you wouldn’t expect investment in the stores to be high on the agenda. Nevertheless, the retailer has been thinking hard about what it can do with its stores and improving the face it presents to its customers.

Evidence of this work can be seen on New Oxford Street, where Jessops revealed a new-look flagship last month aimed at encouraging greater shopper interactivity. Which rather raises the question: how do you interact with shelves of digital cameras? The answer lies in-store.

The new shop represents a move on from the branch that opened at Westfield London at the end of October last year, which also promoted a hands-on approach from shoppers in the form
of image printing. There are, however, a number of key differences about the Oxford Street store, foremost probably being the Jessops Academy Training room, a space where photographers can learn more about using cameras and improving their techniques. However, that is deep within this two-floor, 2,500 sq ft store, the retailer’s largest.

Standing on New Oxford Street across the road from the shop, it is immediately obvious that this is not like other branches in the chain. For a start, above one of the windows there is the strapline: “Your pictures. Our passion,” described in faux handwriting. This is the second time this has had an outing – it first saw the light of day at Westfield. But Jessops store development director Peter Riordan says that the font is different. He also points at the window to the right of the main door, above which appears the company’s web address – a first for Jessops.

Branded space

Inside, the ground floor has a sense of openness and freedom to move and, perhaps above all, of being a branded space.

This is not an accident. Riordan says that the mid-shop display units – many of which are effectively owned by brands Sony, Canon and Nikon – have large amounts of storage space underneath them. This has released stockroom space, allowing additional selling space to be created.

The display units’ storage areas are glass-fronted, making a virtue of necessity and allowing staff to provide a measure of instant gratification, rather than adopting the “I’ll have a look in the stockroom” line, should a shopper be considering a purchase. However, it is on top of the units that the real interest lies.

The long lines of compact digital cameras and digital SLRs are displayed on “live” plinths. Jessops retail director Dominic Prendergast says that customers can now test-drive the stock and play with it, rather than waiting for a particular model to be demonstrated. “Most places you go to you can’t do this. It’s a real culture change for us,” he says.

Behind the camera display units there is a long accessories wall. This bears more than a passing resemblance to what can be seen in some electricals retailers in Germany – particularly
Saturn. Riordan confirms that this is the case, as part of the development process for this store and the Westfield branch has been a trip to the US and across Europe, assessing best practice and unashamedly using some of the elements observed. “We think that the blend that we have created in this store is better than what you might see in Saturn or others,” says Riordan.

Also at the front of this floor, to the right of the entrance, is a bank of camera memory card-processing units. Riordan says that these are intended to be the sprat to catch the mackerel, allowing customers to start looking at their photographic efforts on screen and then, should they wish them to be processed, tempting them to head downstairs where the photo lab awaits them.

For those of a more professional bent, the back of the floor has cameras with a top price of more than £5,000 –  and that’s before the appropriate lens is considered. Unlike the live displays, the bulk of these are housed within glass cabinets and have counters in front of them, allowing for a more personal service, Riordan says.

Before leaving the ground floor, shoppers will encounter the “obelisks”. These are narrow, high oblong units with a square glass case on top of each. They serve as display cases for single products and allow Jessops to play with museum-style visual merchandising.

It’s also worth noting what has been done with the floor. The ground floor is hard-tiled throughout, with darker and lighter tiles used to demarcate different areas of the shop. These are aligned with the overhead signage beacons, making finding what you want relatively straightforward.

The engine room

Downstairs, the mood changes. The basement is about image processing and is also home to the Jessops Academy. On the day of visiting, a six-hour training course was about to kick off and the room was filled with expectant faces eager to learn new techniques from the professional photographer who had been brought in for the purpose.

The bulk of the floor, though, is concerned with taking a simple digital image and showing what can be done with it. This varies from having it blown up and printed on canvas, using a plotter, to printing off sets of images that have been handed to staff in the lab. The lab is open-plan. Riordan explains that in the chain’s other stores the lab tends to be behind a counter, but the hope is that by allowing shoppers to get in among the equipment it will prove to be more inclusive and, ultimately, generate more business.

The question has to be whether all of this will work. Jessops has come through a torrid time and there was a period earlier this year when questions were being asked about its ability to meet its store rental commitments.

The New Oxford Street store is a flagship and its turnover is more than four times that of a standard Jessops shop. And there is no doubt that this is a good store – Riordan says that more of its ilk, albeit smaller, will be appearing by July. However, there is a very substantial tranche of smaller branches that are in urgent need of refurbishment. Whether funds are in place to carry this out remains a moot point.

It is the manner in which Jessops adapts what has been done in central London that will determine its future prospects.  A winning flagship handled in the right way can cascade benefits across the chain.