Store gallery: New store format for Topps Tiles

Tiling’s a messy business and it’s easy to get things wrong. Perhaps for this reason, there are many small retailers offering tiles that have in-store ‘experts’ who will advise on how to go about getting the best from a purchase. It is, however, frequently difficult to work out how a room will look when the customer is removed from the winning ways of the salesman who is looking to shift some cut-price white tiles with a yellow floral border. It all seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Perhaps with this in mind, Topps Tiles has opened a new format store on the outskirts of Milton Keynes that aims to put shoppers at ease when choosing which tile will go well in that utility room at the back of the house. And perhaps mercifully, there’s not a yellow floral-bordered tile in sight.

The shop is actually located midway between two of the roundabouts for which Milton Keynes is so famous, on a trading estate with Al Murad, a cut-price tile retailer, and Tile Giant, just down the road, for company. This possibly points to the conclusion that a lot of tiling takes place in southern Milton Keynes, or possibly that the area is something of a destination for those in search of the commodity.

Revitalise trade

What is certain is that Topps Tiles’ management will be hoping that the new format may provide a fillip after experiencing falling sales and profits of late. The retailer revealed that total sales of £86.6m were down £2.6m on 2011 and adjusted pre-tax profits fell by 22% in the 26 weeks to March 31, although it stated that things had picked up in the seven weeks following.

Everything to play for then and the Milton Keynes ‘lab store’ is part of a concerted effort to arrest the first-half slide. From the outside, the store is like most of the newer Topps Tiles stores – with yellow, blue and white all where they would be expected to be, although the dominance of the yellow is startling. Freestanding signs and those attached to the building announce ‘trade and public are welcome’.

Topps Tiles chief executive Matthew Williams says: “One of the clear remits was not to create something that would be a special one-off. We haven’t changed the store format for a long time and we were keen that instead of tinkering with bits of stores, we would take all of the new ideas and put them into one store.”

This is certainly a ‘lab’ insofar as there are elements within it that will be different from the rest of the Topps Tiles estate, but the name implies something rather more radical than is in fact the case. As Jim Thompson, managing director of design consultancy 20/20 that created the new interior, says: “This is a concept that can be retrofitted into 300 or so other stores [the Topps Tiles estate stands at 320 doors] if required. We’ve actually used the same unitry and display systems. It’s a communications job and a number of features have been added to the store and there’s a better accessories counter for the trade.”

The “communications” aspect of what has been done is apparent from the instant you pass through the ‘customer entrance’ (there is a loading bay to the left of the store, which on the day of visiting was full of poly-wrapped tiles that had just been delivered).

To the right, two large graphic panels provide an introduction to the store. In common with the exterior, the predominant colour is yellow and, alongside the ‘welcome’, is an introduction to what the shopper should expect with mini-tile samples and messages such as ‘where do I start?’ and ‘a quick guide’. The latter outlines the major flooring categories with ‘ceramics’, ‘porcelain’, ‘natural stones’, ‘mosaics’, ‘glass’ and ‘wood flooring’ all listed. It’s simple, but at least expectations have been set and, for those who want to remember what they’ve seen, catalogues are also to hand.

Look to the left and the cash tills are arranged along a dark grey and yellow counter above which is the overriding message ‘how can we help you?’. The tills are at the end of the shopping journey and therefore this is the area of the shop that will be visited if a customer has been converted.

Before that happens, however, there is the rest of the store to be explored. And this is a relatively undemanding matter owing to the category frieze that runs around the whole of the perimeter wall. This ensures customers finding their way to the tile of their choice is straightforward.

The area that is really striking, however, is the mosaic wall on the right-hand side. As well as being brightly coloured and readily understood, it also forms the precursor to one of the highlights of the store, the ‘online visualizer’ and the ‘inspiration station’. The former enables shoppers to take tiles from the ranges and place them in a series of spaces on a screen in order to get a sense of what a room decorated with a particular tile might look like. The latter is an angled board with a shelf at its base. On this, tiles can be rested and combined to see how things might look.

This is a long way from the normal modus operandi in most tiles shops where samples are often cemented to display boards and the customer is required to carry out a considerable feat of imagination.

From here then, progress can be made around the perimeter, which carries everything from a small booth with temperature-controlled tiles (for underfloor heating) to the upscale stone and porcelain section. And so the circuit is completed and in keeping with Thompson’s communications mantra, the last point of call prior to the cash desk is to inspect the mid-shop units that ask ‘forgotten anything?’, where grouting and suchlike await.

Boosting conversion rates

A clean and clear execution therefore, but by no stretch of the imagination could this be termed an immersive experience – that’s not what it’s about. If you’re out to find tiles, but don’t really know what you want or how to go about things, then this is a good store. Williams says that the current payback on a Topps Tiles store is two years and given the modular and generally cosmetic nature of what has been done here, it would be reasonable to expect something similar in the Milton Keynes lab.

But will it mean more Topps Tiles shoppers? “You’ve got to believe that even if you don’t get more customers you’ll sell more to the existing ones who come in. And that’s what it’s all about – improving conversion rates and a bigger basket size,” says Thompson. Topps Tiles needs to ensure that the assessment period of the lab does not last too long.