SLOVENIA. Smartseller, the joint venture founded in 2020 between Gebr Heinemann and travel food company casualfood, has opened an integrated retail space combining duty free, food & beverage and convenience at Ljubljana Airport.
The 1,000sq m walk-through area is located in the airport’s new terminal, with most of the space opened on 1 July. The remaining space is scheduled to open in April 2022. While Smartseller is the name of the joint venture, in Ljubljana it operates under the customised brand name ‘all yours’.
Smartseller Managing Director Karl Niendorf said: “all yours is offering passengers a liquid retail journey, committed to melting barriers and creating a haven for travellers. The boundaries between duty free, food & beverage and convenience shops have disappeared in favour of an open concept allowing passengers to move about as they wish. The concept evolves retail spaces from formerly rigid, category-centred assortments into four needs-oriented zones, creating smooth and intuitive transitions between themes, products and services.”
The company has established the pebble as the symbolic cornerstone of the new customer journey. Being the logo, the pebble extends from the shop fittings to other aspects of the communications. In the shop design, four pebbles serve as fixed points of orientation, around which everything flows: Your Location (local products), Your Studio (a place to linger), Your Spa (a well-being zone for relaxing and freshening up) and Your Bistro (Food & Beverage). Around the pebbles, the range of categories is presented with “visual appeal and a local touch” said the partners.
Sustainable shop design
The furniture construction is linear, flexible and adaptable to future requirements. Elements can be quickly reconstructed or used in other ways, as the components are mainly fastened together by plug-in connectors and the structures remain simple. It is economical and contributes to the shop design’s sustainability, said Smartseller.
The concept and local design were created in cooperation with GRAFT architects, with an emphasis on creating “unique and surprising touchpoints” for travellers.
For its operations, Smartseller took over from Heinemann Duty Free & Travel Value and casualfood’s operations in close cooperation with airport operator Fraport Slovenija.
“The fresh and innovative concept of the duty free area, where retail and F&B offer are intertwined, is one of the highlights of the new terminal at Ljubljana Airport. We believe that the perfectly designed shop and product offer, combined with an attractive food corner will persuade even the most demanding travellers,” said Babett Stapel, Chief Commercial, Finance and Administrative Officer at Fraport Slovenija. “Especially in these times both partners appreciated the high level of commitment and mutual trust to commercial innovation in airport travel.”
Smartseller is already active with integrated solutions on a smaller scale at regional airports in Münster/Osnabrück and Leipzig in Germany. While these integrate duty free, food & beverage and convenience retail spaces, they are not marketed under an umbrella customer-facing brand as in Ljubljana. After this launch at the Slovenian capital city airport, Smartseller will roll out the concept elsewhere in Europe. “The airport of the future must be understood as a holistic marketplace in terms of its synergies and not in terms of its stand-alone offers. We are streamlining all our offers towards this aim,” Niendorf concluded.
