Selfridges and Royal Mail send messages to the North Pole…

Hi everyone,

As we move into the final weeks before Christmas, a lot of exciting developments in the retail space are occurring, be that in sustainability initiatives, super-extended opening hours to ease customer demand and a Royal Mail/Selfridges partnership we never thought we would see!

First up, sustainability in retail, an issue close to my heart and for good reason, global action is a necessity to combat this. This Christmas, Tesco is leading the charge through removing 20m items of plastic from its Christmas range.  The UK’s largest supermarket has cut pieces from its seasonal range, removed layers of plastic in packaging and eliminated glitter in all single-use products making them much more recyclable – this is a great initiative from Tesco that hopefully others will follow too. On this trend, we move to another giant, M&S who this week has opened its third renewable store, a new type of food store that aims to change how customers shop. The branches employ a ‘fill your own’ concept, in which customers can cut back on their plastic use through refillable grocery essentials. These initiatives are vital to the sustainable movement as they combat the age-old dilemma of plastic in food packaging and therefore it’s important the uptake of these stores is fast tracked to provide access to everyone.

Selfridges is back at it again with its focus on ‘retail-tainment’, in which it continues to innovate the use of its store space to encourage customers to come into the store! This time, it has partnered up with Royal Mail who have come together to launch an immersive experience spanning store and online at Selfridges’ London store. Royal Mail has taken over the lower ground floor with a playful interpretation of the postal service, complete with trolleys and mail bags. On top of this, customers will have access to a bespoke postal and wrapping service to send gifts to loved ones along with a ‘Santa Mail’ service in which kids will be able to send those very important letters! This expertly cross blends the experience and entertainment needed to encourage visitors with practical application to justify using the store space in this way, bravo!

The close out this week, Primark has announced that its store in Glasgow is set to stay open for 36 hours straight! I hope no one is going to try and work the entire stint… Primark, who has suffered more than most this year due to a lack of an online presence are expecting huge customer volumes upon opening up its stores today (Friday 11^th December) and believe this extended trading period will allow them to keep everyone safe whilst shopping.

That’s all from me this week, have a good weekend and a Merry Christmas!

Author

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Josh Nokes

Consultant