Watch this space

Opening stores in this kind of economic environment, never mind 45,000 sq ft ones, might strike some as the talk of a mad man. Yet Kiddicare chief executive Scott Weavers-Wright isn’t crazy. In fact, he has something of a track record of making a success of things others think won’t work.

With his latest, admittedly ambitious, plan he is proving that there is bright future for stores as part of a multichannel business. But these are likely to be stores that look and feel quite different from what’s on the high street and retail parks today. He wants to create destinations, places that shoppers will travel for several hours with kids to visit; and where they might stay long enough that they buy lunch while they are there.

His existing superstore in Peterborough does this well, and the planned stores will develop the concept further. It’s also proven that customers aren’t afraid of using self-service technology if it’s well executed. Around 70% of customers to the Peterborough store use the kiosks – to order items to be collected from the service desk once they’ve finished shopping or to order things for home delivery.

Of course a cafe and some kiosks isn’t enough to drive the kind of footfall that you need to make a 45,000 sq ft store pay for itself. And that’s where Weavers-Wright’s plans for a mix of product, content and services comes in. It’s his open mind as to what the stores might contain, how they might look and how he will use technology to deliver the customer experience that makes his plans so exciting.

At the same time, the company will probably want to further expand its range and kid-related categories. Product is as crucial as ever in the multichannel store of the future. But not only will customers want you to have the right products, they’ll want to know that you have them in stock before they make the trip to the store. That retailers such as Ikea, Argos and Topshop are displaying store stock availability on their websites is indicative of this.

A year ago high street retailers were privately saying that their store portfolios were too large, and between now and then many have made more public statements. We are now at a point where the industry is musing over what the stores in these smaller portfolios should contain. Watching what Kiddicare does should provide some food for thought.