Thorntons sweet spot

There was a point, not so very long ago, when the name Thorntons actually meant a chocolate seller that had a limited presence on the high street and which was about treating yourself, or those close to you, to something a little special.

Then things seemed to go awry. The retail brand ballooned and suddenly there was a branch on every corner, ranging in size from little more than kiosks to small shops groaning under the weight of cut-price chocolates.

The outcome was that a brand that had been a destination rapidly became remarkable for its ubiquity and the notion of it being special came under pressure. At the same time, a rival, in the shape of Hotel Chocolat, began to make its appearance in a substantial number of locations where Thorntons operated. All of which has meant a decline for the brand with a store closure programme being instituted in 2011, which had already resulted in the disappearance of 20 stores in the six-month period to January 7.

This may go some way towards dealing with the structural problems that beset the retailer. But as well as closing stores, there is also the matter of enticing more shoppers through the doors of those branches that remain when up to 180 stores have finally been returned to landlords.

Sweet spot

With this in mind, Thorntons has a new format that it has kept relatively quiet about. This one’s in Birmingham and it’s actually been trading since November. And in spite of its prominent position midway along the High Street and a stone’s throw from both the Pavilions shopping centre and the Bullring, few have commented on it. This may be something to do with the fact that the last time Thorntons went for a new look it was in Kingston and that it was not subsequently rolled out speaks volumes for the success of the format.

But that was then, and perhaps the dark brown and turquoise colour scheme that characterised that store may have had something to do with its failure to capture the popular shopper’s imagination. In Birmingham things are different.

For a start, there’s the exterior, which is a gold and dark brown confection with windows either side of the main door and an awning that extends in a manner reminiscent of a Continental cafe. Walk indoors and the sense of difference extends to the internal colour scheme, which is a replica of the exterior, with the addition of a dark pink to the colour palette.

Retail development manager Paul Hales says: “We wanted a store that would be fun, quirky, but which would keep some of the heritage that we have built up over the past 100 years.” Both interior and exterior are the work of York-based consultancy Inspire and a quick glance at the design company’s website reveals that this store is intended primarily to be about gifting.

The suspicion is confirmed when Hales refers to “gifting solutions”, but it is quite hard not to wonder whether this isn’t the raison d’être of every retailer selling chocolate. Nonetheless this does, at first glance, look very different from the pastel-led interior that is the Thorntons norm.

And around the upper perimeter, a purple frieze, with a dark chocolate-coloured border has messages to put you in the gifting mood: ‘best wishes, thank you, well done, congratulations’ – you quickly get the idea. Hales points out that these are in fact magnetic strips – meaning that changing the messages and catering for ‘gifting’ events like Mother’s Day or Easter, can be rapidly effected.

Allowing the gaze to fall from this, the perimeter on both walls is divided into a series of modules, each aimed at fulfilling an occasion-based need.

This means, in one area, a series of transparent tubes with funnels at their lower end that allow you to pick and mix into a bag or an old-fashioned preserving jar. Something of the kind is in use at the M&M’s World store in London and it does make the business of creating your own gift possible.

Another module is filled with shelves containing oval chocolate boxes and with a “fish tank”, as Hales puts it, occupying the lowest level. The latter is about display and while it may compromise density on the floor, it does break up the possible visual monotony. It is the shelves that are most noteworthy, however, as they are attached to tracks set into the wall of each module.

There are three tracks per module, meaning that shelves of different sizes can be fitted in each space which allows the appearance of the perimeter to be varied – it’s an easy way to build in flexibility. Underneath each shelf, a row of small LED lights also ensures that the stock is shown off to advantage.

However, the real action in this store and the elements that mark it out as being different from a standard Thorntons are in the mid-shop and at the cash desk. Just inside the front of the shop there are a series of tables, which have been nested together and on the day of visiting formed a platform for boxes of ‘Classics’. Rather more importantly, they were also the point at which a member of staff was customising chocolate bars to order, using a range of piping bags, each of which was filled with different coloured icing.

Beyond this, a wedding cake-like fixture was used to display individual chocolates in brightly coloured foil wrappers and making it feel once more like the sort of thing you might encounter in, say, Paris or Vienna – at a stretch.

Finally, at the till at the back of the shop, is a cash and wrap service that means you can have your purchase covered by one of a number of different giftwraps and secured with ribbon.

There is a charge for this service, but if a present really is on the agenda, the chances are good that you’re going to spend a fair amount on doing precisely the same thing yourself, if you don’t avail yourself of what’s on offer.

So is this the solution to Thorntons’ ills? A range of ‘handmade’ chocolates is being launched this month and a further six stores will receive the Birmingham treatment by June this year. “So far it’s worked really well for us,” says Hales and certainly one of the more positive features of what has been done is that while it looks better, costs are unlikely to have been overwhelming.

That said, as things stand there is a mere £4.5m to £6m to spend on revamping the whole estate – which does rather look as if spreading things thinly may be the order of the day.

The other point that still has to be reckoned with is the way in which Hotel Chocolat has succeeded in stealing a significant part of the ‘mass premium’ market in the destinations in which it has appeared.

Thorntons shares were among the biggest movers in the week ending February 17 and more than doubled in price from the same date a month before.

However,  consider that at the beginning of March last year, shares were changing hands for 92p and at the time of writing they had just risen to 25p. Much work remains to be done, and although Birmingham is an improvement, bringing all of its stores up to this standard looks a big ask.