UK. Leading news, books and travel essentials retailer WHSmith today officially opened a new flagship ‘blended essentials’ store at London Heathrow Terminal 2. The store features a WHSmith world-first LED fascia, a radical new store design and an in-house pharmacy, in partnership with Well.
The Moodie Davitt Report was in attendance as the exclusive travel retail media representative, alongside guests including Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow Retail Director Fraser Brown and WHSmith CEO Carl Cowling.
The existing 4,800sq ft WHSmith store in T2 has been slightly increased in size to 5,100sq ft through the £1.5 million refurbishment, but has been designed in such a way as to increase linear space by +34%. Some 26 tills have been installed for the convenience of customers, an increase of +90%, to ensure short queuing times, even as air traffic picks up.
Described as a ‘one-stop shop’ by WHSmith, the new concept store has a wide-ranging offer from bestselling books and food and drinks to cosmetics, souvenirs and gifts.
Also featured in the store is a comprehensive health and beauty offer, including product ranges from global brands such as L’Oréal, Olay and Rimmel. This complements a full pharmacy offer from partner Well, a prominent operator in the UK market. Customers can also benefit from a qualified in-store pharmacist who can give travellers professional health and pharmacy product advice where needed.
A Sense of Place is brought to the store by a London destination merchandise offer, overlooked by an LED Big Ben graphic (pictured below), which chimes on the hour. The previous destination offer has been expanded via a partnership between WHSmith and a company from London’s Carnaby Street – We Built This City. The latter has created a range of store-exclusive souvenirs based on work by local artists.
The store’s world-first LED fascia – above a large open-fronted entrance – creates an engaging visual impact on passing travellers, while allowing the store to clearly signpost the products, services and offers available.
Giving his reaction to the new store, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye told The Moodie Davitt Report: “I think it’s a fantastic store. One of the greatest things about it is that it flows so beautifully. One of the big issues when the airport is busy are queues, but this has been designed so that people keep moving – the number of tills is a big plus. If a passenger is thinking about going in to a shop and they see a queue they will often avoid it. By really focusing on removing those bottlenecks, WHSmith has ensured that an increasing number of people are going to shop here.
“The expansion of the souvenirs offer is terrific. It is one of the things we always look for at Heathrow – to give a real sense of Britishness when you are travelling through this airport. I think WHSmith has done a really good job of bringing that into the store, in the process promoting some local designers and a local brand in We Built This City. The local offer you see in a lot of airports is very generic and standardised – here it’s been beautifully curated to give people the choice of some unique souvenirs of London and the UK.”
WHSmith CEO Carl Cowling described the new shop as “our most remarkable WHSmith store yet”. He added: “This new world-class design and stunning store environment, including the enhanced pharmacy offer, really does showcase the very best in travel retail globally.
“My sincere thanks go to all of the team involved who have created such a fantastic store throughout what has been a very challenging few months for everyone. We have received great feedback from passengers travelling through the airport and the team looks forward to welcoming more customers over the coming months.”
Heathrow Retail Director Fraser Brown also gave his reaction: “We have a longstanding relationship with WHSmith, dating right back to when the airport opened in 1946, so it’s fantastic to be celebrating this new flagship store in Terminal 2 today.
“We’ve worked together to create a truly innovative travel retail concept, continuing to provide the best airport service in the world despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
At the store opening, The Moodie Davitt Report also asked Holland-Kaye to assess the difficult process of restoring retail to its former strength at the airport. He revealed that about half of all stores and restaurants have now reopened.
He added: “Unfortunately there have been a few of our retail tenants that have gone out of business but that gives us an opportunity to refresh the offer that we have. Given the changing nature of passengers and their needs, it allows us to change some of the retail mix we have, to appeal to a slightly different market.”
Holland-Kaye said his team was working hard with retailers to enhance digital methods of serving customers. He said: “We have seen a huge increase in people who are ordering in advance, and that has really helped our retailers’ sales. We are trying to get ahead of some of those changes in passenger behaviour – we want to be right at the forefront of changes in consumer needs and digital is obviously a big part of that.”
Asked for his assessment of how the airport’s retail team has handled the COVID-19 crisis and the moves towards full reopening, he said: “It’s not been easy with retail being in crisis right across the UK and we have not been immune to that at the airport. Normally, if we are opening a new terminal and we have a small number of passengers, we still like to have all the stores open. But in these times you can’t do that – it wouldn’t be fair to the retailers who are very often struggling themselves financially.”
Holland-Kaye concluded: “We have tried to reopen retail and F&B in a sensible, phased way, which I think gives passengers a range of offers that allows them to get the essentials and F&B they need. I would hope that within the next few months we will be able to have nearly all of our stores up and running. Spend is holding up better than might have been expected.”
*Watch out for further reaction and interviews with WHSmith and Heathrow Airport senior executives in coming days across our platforms.
