TK Maxx lives up to eastern promise

Poland is the newest country to join the TK Maxx fold and as such, is also the recipient of the most advanced shop design for the cut-price purveyor of branded merchandise. Things kicked-off on September 27, when a store opened in Czeladz, swiftly followed by two more, in Bielsko-Biała and Wrocław. Then, less than a month ago, another branch welcomed shoppers, this time in the western city of Poznan.

Poznan is the sort of place it would be hard to dislike. With about 250,000 inhabitants, of whom one in five is apparently a student (there are 17 higher education establishments in the city), this is a destination with a decidedly young population. It is also home to shopping centre sprawl with in-town and edge-of-town malls seemingly cropping up at the end of every major road.

Some of these are rather more important than others and one, the Galeria Malta, situated as you head east from the substantial old town at Poznan’s heart, opened this year and is home to TK Maxx. And what makes this TK Maxx interesting is the way in which a brand whose European roots are in the UK and Ireland is evolving its game as it spreads across the continent.

This is a two-floor 36,965 sq ft store, with both levels being the same size and with womenswear, shoes and a Christmas shop on ground, while men’s, kids and home are upstairs. And standing within the mall, where this is one of the anchor tenants, the curving glass frontage on the ground level has part of its substantial length filled by red and orange circular illuminated signs. These are used to advertise the benefits of “big labels small prices” where the words beginning with “big” are black and those with “small” are in white, set against the coloured background.

Marketing director Deborah Dolce says that the decision to stick with an English strapline rather than localising things was the outcome of substantial research that showed that the words would carry meaning in this market as much as in the UK. The slogan has also been deployed in Germany, where TK Maxx stores have also debuted this year.

The background in the windows to this signage and to the several light-boxes carrying graphics of models wearing, presumably, TK Maxx stock, is a cream wall with surface interest of the kind that might be created by chipping away at a piece of wood with a hand-axe, or some such. It is also remarkably similar to the finish found in newer branches of Next, where it was first unveiled in Meadowhall, more than three years ago. Nevertheless it provides a neutral and relatively appealing backdrop for the windows.

It is worth noting the light-boxes too. These contain bright, shiny, happy-looking types wearing very non-specific clothes. The reason for this is straightforward. As TK Maxx rarely has huge numbers of any particular item – it’s not part of the formula – anything that might be put in the windows would be likely to be sold before there had been time to dress a mannequin.
It therefore makes sense to use light-boxes as mood-setters rather than as vehicles for specific items.

It also carries the additional benefit that it is considerably easier and cheaper to change the graphic in a light-box than it would be to employ somebody to create a window display – a consideration where a low-cost and easily rolled-out format is involved.

Eye candy

Step inside the store and it doesn’t matter where you are, the eye is automatically drawn to the centre by the shop’s principal design feature, the escalator well. Consisting of an array of loud, red fluorescent tubes hung vertically in the area directly above the circular space, you can’t help but look.

To an extent, this is eye candy. It serves no particular purpose other than to make sure that you look into the store, and on this level, it works very well. That an eye-catcher of this kind should be so inexpensive is, like the windows, evidence that this is a store where much time has been devoted to figuring out how to do things on a tight budget.

Strangely, however, the area is not used to best advantage in this store (there is something similar in the Kensington High Street branch) as the very large space directly beneath the escalator and immediately around it is completely empty. There is an argument that this will aid in-store navigation, something that Dolce says has been a priority for the store design department, but the sheer amount of unused selling space does appear a little cavalier.

Tearing eyes away from the escalators and surroundings, the other overriding impression is red. Many of the pillars are red, the area behind the cash desk is red and, looking back, the goalpost-like entrance is also red. It is all very consistent and you can see how the retailer has developed from looking like an upscale jumble sale, where shoppers tended to treat it as such, into a serious retail proposition.

It is also obvious that work has gone into clearly defining the various departments. There is always a danger when using chromed rails on which garments are generally side-hung that there will only be one in-store pace and that the interior may look boring. This used to be the case in many TK Maxx stores. You visited because the clothes were cheap, not because you particularly wanted to be there.

The retailer has overcome this, a bit, by the simple expedient of putting in the occasional free-standing wall, or higher piece of equipment on which the stock is forward facing – thereby creating a measure of hanger appeal.

However, if one were to be critical, it would be fair to remark that there is still a fair degree of uniformity of presentation, although, clearly, this is difficult to avoid when there is such a high turnover at individual SKU level.

The point about the Poznan flagship is that there is a very clear and ongoing progression of store design at TK Maxx as it moves from being a UK and Ireland offshoot of a US parent, to being a pan-European operation. What Polish shoppers are presented with is a store environment that sets expectations of value, rather than low price, from the outset, but where the ambience of rifling through endless rails of ill-sorted stock within a shed is dispelled.

Country manager Joanna Czyzewska is all smiles and says that TK Maxx has proved a success with Polish shoppers in the two or so months since it began trading and that a Warsaw store and a more general roll out are set to follow.

It is a measure of how quickly things have progressed that Dolce says: “We are a European company and I don’t think we would view ourselves as having a head office any more. We have an office in Watford and we have quite a large office in Dusseldorf.”

It would be nice to think that this might mean an end to faceless sheds bearing the legend TK Maxx – ‑given the nature of the offer and the frequency with which it is found on the edge of towns and cities, but this probably remains an unreasonable hope – for the time being at least.

TK Maxx has come a long way since the days when a good rummage was part of the shopping experience. If the new-look stores can be replicated more generally across the portfolio, there is every reason to suppose that this will be that rare beast – a European format with true cross-border legs.