It is lovely to see Westminster City Council offering free central London retail units to small businesses, start-ups and emerging creative talent for three months.

Intended to promote imaginative new concepts, the project will focus on engagement and interaction over sales, favouring mixed reality concepts (AR/VR/XR), wellbeing initiatives and sustainable design.

In partnership with New West End Company and The Crown Estate, 10 start-ups will get a space in one of London’s most popular shopping areas (Oxford Street, Regent Street or Mayfair) and up to £5,000 towards store fit-out. This follows the initiative by Westfield earlier this summer – where they supported lockdown Side Hustles.

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1. Retail Services Mainstream Mental Health

Responding to the ‘second pandemic’ (poor mental health caused by lockdowns), American pharmacy brands and supermarket offshoots including Rite Aid, CVS and Walmart have begun offering affordable mental health support, virtually and in-person. Mental health issues rose by 50% globally during Covid (Nature, 2021), indicating the value of such services across all regions.

2. Evolving Online Service Design

Disruptive medi-retail newcomers are upgrading online service design by streamlining lengthy, often bureaucratic procedures. Delegation, automation and specialisation are key, with noteworthy concepts including Folx’s transgender-supportive prescriptions and clever smartphone diagnostics from American DTC brands Skin + Me (dermatology) and 1800 Contacts (optical).

3. Pre-Emptive Powers Evolve Physical Pharmacies & Clinics

Pharmacies and vitamin and supplement brands are ramping up their efforts to support consumers aiming to avoid seeing a doctor for minor conditions – augmenting retail services with consultations as focused on detecting problems and offering pre-emptive healthcare as treating symptoms. From phygital vitamin kiosks to high-tech health ‘scanners’, the best redefine the ‘brand as caregiver’ role.

   

4. Tracking Tools: Retailers Turn Service Provider

Catering to the consumer belief that tracking their behaviour actively improves their habits, smart brands are partnering with digital tracker start-ups, transitioning from retailers to relied-upon service providers. From supermarket-ready personalised nutrition to apps with bespoke supplement prescriptions and food deliveries built-in, real-time tracking is giving consumers a crucial sense of control post-Covid.

   

5. Vanity Upgrades: Medi-Cosmetic Retail for the Zoom Boom

From orthodontics to skincare, ‘tweakments’ (minor cosmetic procedures) have boomed courtesy of consumers spending hours on video calls. US dental studio and retailer Tend is a key example, thanks to its new app allowing consumers visibility of their treatment plans and capacity to choose in-clinic preferences, while Shiseido’s ‘open urban lab’ S/Park foregrounds its clinical know-how.

     

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Part Six: Fulfilment Centres

By Emma Gullick, Associate Creative Director at design agency Phoenix Wharf

During the pandemic, deliveries arrived at our doors like never before – clothes, books, food, gifts, items for the home.

Home delivery was convenient and safe, but now, as we leave our homes and return to at least some degree of wider-world normality, do we really want packages mounting up in our absence? And isn’t it about time to consider the carbon footprint of all those different delivery companies coming out to so many individual addresses too?

 

Multi-retailer Fulfilment Centres

A concept offering a number of combined solutions could be a multi-retailer high street fulfilment centre, where customers could pick up all their parcels at one go and at their convenience, making use of on-site changing rooms for fashion items, deciding on any returns and then expediting them in situ. A future-facing fulfilment centre, arranged around a principle of hassle-free customer convenience, would remove the need for customers to return unwanted goods via post offices or at various ‘click and collect’ destinations.

 

Personalisation and Pop-Ups

Customers would be alerted to a new delivery by phone message or email and directed towards their own locker with a personalised code. The lockers would be immediately accessible on entering the store, with no need for interaction if not desired. Not only would such fulfilment centres take up empty high street units, but they could be made more dynamic still with the integration of fluid retailer pop-ups at their centre, drawing in non-mission customers as well.

 

Scalable Solution

The design of the pop-up space would be neutral and flexible, with a large digital wall allowing for high impact motion graphics, videos and imagery. Its structure would be a simple frame with mesh panels to allow those in-store a sneak peek of what is inside. The mesh would also be a practical solution for wall hanging and room dressing, whilst simple props would display products. The pop-up could easily be scaled up and down to take advantage of empty retail units and also provide an opportunity for brands to create a buzz around their pop-up concept.

 

Reduced Carbon Footprint

Customers would flow around the space, exiting either via the pop-up zone or going to the changing rooms and returns area first. If they try items on and are happy, they can exit through the pop-up. If not, they can visit the returns area, re-package, print a returns label and post back. The fulfilment centre would also promise a 100% recycling commitment for all packaging waste. Individual retailer pick-ups would additionally be streamlined with simultaneous delivery and collections, thereby also reducing carbon footprints.

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30% of young pet owners in the UK feel that it’s important for their pet to keep up with clothing and grooming styles (Mintel, 2020).

There is a growing list of brands experimenting in the niche but growing market of pet fashion, including the likes of luxury labels Moncler and Moschino, as well as high street retailers like H&M, River Island and Primark. The petwear market is proving to be a lucrative and still largely untapped market for many apparel brands.

As part of a 6-part series on creative future approaches to retail, our designers looked at reimagining the future of Pet Shops. Inevitably, Pet Shops will be affected by the petwear movement in years to come with the boom in both pet ownership and pet-related purchases driving demand.

Below are 5 influencers that are worth keeping a close eye on for the lighthearted moments they deliver over social media.

US chain Nordstrom is taking on live-stream e-commerce – a market already worth over $60bn in China (Forbes, 2020), while British group Selfridges is banking on the audio boom with a new nature-focused podcast series.

Nordstrom Live is a QVC-esque live shopping platform that allows fans to RSVP for events, and notifies them when they’re about to begin. Recent events include a styling live stream for Burberry’s S/S 21 looks, and a conversation with British make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury. Viewers click shoppable links alongside the broadcasts to purchase products directly from Nordstrom’s e-commerce site and participate in live chat.

The interactive nature and additional context of these experiences hold increasing resonance – which extends to virtual consultations. In March, US/UK technologists Hero, whose app-based tech lets associates in physical spaces talk to consumers online, revealed that consumers routinely spend up to 70% more online via personalised, video-based shopping experiences.

Meanwhile, Selfridges is banking on audio to bolster its eco-ethical five-year initiative Project Earth. The store’s podcasting channel, Hot Air, has launched Good Nature – diving into biophilic-based pleasures. The first episode involves a patchwork of voices discussing simple pleasures, such as the sound of rainfall.

Whilst department-store-branded podcasts aren’t new – Harrods and Liberty also have ongoing series – they remain a powerful commercial opportunity. The most recent large-scale US survey found that 54% of podcast listeners are more likely to purchase from a brand after hearing it advertised on a podcast (Edison Research, 2019).

Here at Phoenix Wharf, our Fast Forward series looks at creative future approaches to retail. You can read our thoughts on the department store of the future here.

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No wonder, then, that they’re increasingly turning to second-hand fashion marketplaces – so much so that the industry’s expected to grow 20% a year for the next five years.

That wouldn’t just make it a fast-growing segment: it’d make it one of the fastest-growing segments in the entire retail industry.

And investors are taking full advantage: several second-hand fashion marketplaces have made hugely successful stock market debuts this year, and there could be a lot more to come.

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Happiness in Focus

The pressures and worries of the Covid-19 pandemic have impacted ‘life satisfaction’ – one of the metrics used in the World Happiness Report. For example, in the UK, overall life satisfaction (graded from worst to best: 0-10) fell from 7.16 in 2019 to 6.80 in 2020 – a decline of “statistical significance.”

Encouraging Positive Mindsets

The study found that positive psychological characteristics, such as gratitude and resilience, helped protect consumer mental wellbeing during the pandemic. In addition, negative language and sentiments on social media have the opposite effect – detrimentally impacting scrollers’ mental health. Brands, therefore, have the responsibility to cultivate a positive online presence for the benefit of fan wellbeing.

All Together Now

Unsurprisingly, consumers with connection to friends, family and loved ones during the pandemic reported higher life satisfaction. This finding reinforces the importance of social interaction to mental wellbeing. When cultivating communities, voice communication is found to produce stronger social connection – explaining the rise and rise of social audio platforms such as Clubhouse.

Giving Back Gives Back

Consumers looking to boost wellbeing should also consider prosocial and altruistic activities. The report found that both volunteering and charitable payments have beneficial impacts on happiness.

You can read our thoughts and ideas on the future of wellbeing centres here.

Credits: 2021 World Happiness Report & Stylus

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US brand Calico Wallpaper is seizing this opportunity with its latest collection of pioneering ombré wallcoverings that explore the psychological effects of colour.

The Dawn series is designed to inspire hope and optimism during times of hardship through the use of colour therapy (chromotherapy). Combinations of calm, soothing, nourishing and warm shades are employed to create evocative and mood-enhancing products.

Calico enlisted four prominent designers to remotely create the ambient colour gradients. Silhouette – a scorched orange gradient – by Rotterdam-based Sabine Marcelis suggests vivid and uplifting sunsets, while Switzerland-based Ini Archibong was inspired by his local Lake Neuchâtel and his daughter’s favourite colour. The Yemoja colourway – soft pink to deep teal – represents the calm and purifying powers of water.

Milan-based Dimorestudio created Oblio, a deep but soothing red gradient intended to evoke a warm embrace, soft and filtered light, and the idea of travelling to faraway lands once again. Shanghai-based Neri&Hu drew inspiration from the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, reworking the moss green and lapis lazuli shades found in his Woman Reading a Letter painting into a rich, almost botanical blue-green design.

Restorative colours that trigger a sense of comfort or relief will resonate with consumers battling chronic stress, anxiety or overwhelmedness. Products influenced by colour therapy will have a significant place in home, work and retail spaces alike.

Credit: Stylus

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