Yesterday, we took a trip up to Central London to gather some Market Research for our hypothetical up and coming 'niche' brand. As we are developing a Children's Wear brand, it made sense to look at stores that sold just that. We visited Next, Gap, Zara, Marks and Spencer, Debenhams, Selfridges and we also took a visit to The Disney Store because we want our store to be a visual and fun experience, rather than just an average shopping experience and Disney does just that!
NEXT
When visiting Next, We found that the space was very tight and a bit claustrophobic, which creates a problem for most parents because pushchair space definitely needs to be considered. The space was very quiet but there was an atmosphere that wasn't particularly welcoming to me- I didn't want to stay.
They had a section marked '3-12 years' and another 'up to 5 years' which we thought was a bit confusing. The girls section included a colour pallet of pink and blue towards the front of the store, with a focus on strawberry prints which I quite liked and lilac, grey and khaki towards the back. The boys section included colour pallets of blue and bright orange.
The average price point for a single garment was between £10-£20 pounds. A t-shirt averaging on around £12 and a jumper or dress around the £20 mark.
GAP
We really loved Gap. It was super spacious and the childrenswear section was huge. There were very big and clear walkways, everything looked neat and fresh and the atmosphere was very welcoming. There was loud-ish music and white lighting as opposed to the yellow lighting in Next.
They had a section for age ranges 4-13 and their 'Baby Gap' section that was anything from newborn up to 36 months (Age 3). There was a mixture of folded and hanging, with the use of small white wooden hangers which I LOVED. We noticed that the displays had both items low and high to possibly cater for the eye-level of both parents and children. I thought this idea was great as they have cleverly thought about their split audience.
Gap had this really interesting white metal box frame in which they displayed girl's clothing, using a colour pallet of lilac and blue. There was something really inviting about it yet subtle. They also displayed folded clothing on tables with big tractor- looking wheels and displayed jeans on wooden park benches with kids legs in the air, wearing the jeans. I thought these ideas were also very subtle yet fun.
ZARA
Zara had a very clear, rather spacious and tidy space with excellent colour coordination and visual merchandising.
They had a semi neutral colour pallet- though there was colour, it had been muted down to appear less obnoxious.
The new older girl's range involved a colour pallet of black, white and grey which stood out against the soft colours displayed everywhere else. The girl's baby section displayed the colours; peach, pink and cream on one section and the other; blue, yellow, khaki green, and white (see top left picture). Cardigans averaged around the £10 mark and dresses averaged around £20.
MARKS & SPENCER / DEBENHAMS
I have put these both in one category because 1) they were very similar and 2) there isn't an awful lot to write because they were pretty average.
The spaces were rather tightly packed together but not as much as Next was. The colour co-ordination and visual merchandising in Marks & Spencer was pretty awful. They had a mix-match of different colours all dotted around the place which made it rather confusing and not very inviting.
Debenham's space was split according to brand which I didn't like because I felt that the space as a whole didn't really work when there were sub-sections within sub-sections. The bit that stood out for us was the Girls Ted Baker section. It was super girly and pink with lots of floral and floaty designs going on. Even though it was typically girly, which we don't want to portray in our brand, there was something eye catching about the display. They also had mirrors with a pink butterfly design on- we took note of mirror designs as an idea for our own brand.
SELFRIDGES
I actually find the whole of the Selfridge's store very uninviting. There is an air of 'we're all better than you' that I hate so I automatically felt unwelcome when visiting the children's department.
However, saying that, it was a very interesting place to visit. Walking around the section held my interest as there was a lot of different experiments with the layout of the store. Each brand had displayed their collections differently. Burberry's section was very sophisticated and neutral regarding colour. Gucci was very glamorous and girly with the use of pink and gold colours. The rest of the store was very playful, using seats made of toys and monster pods, used to try on shoes.
Even though the brands were separated very clearly with use of visual merchandising, vibe and colours, the children's section as a whole had a general 'grown-up' feel to it. When looking at the clothes, we just saw adult clothes shrunk down to fit a child. There wasn't much of a 'fun' factor regarding the clothes which we strive for in our own niche brand.
What Did We Learn?
This trip was super helpful and we learned an awful lot about other Children's wear brands- their pricing, their colour schemes, their styles, their layout and their atmospheres. The biggest help of this trip was to see that the two things that we were hoping would make our brand 'niche' (Unisex and the 'Fun-Factor') were actually lacking massively in all of the stores that we visited.
There was a clear divide in boys and girls sections, with overly used stereotypical gender colour pallets and the clothes were just too 'grown-up'. This has made us very confident that our own brand will stand out on the high-street and there would definitely not be another store like ours.
We have collected a lot of ideas for our store layout and visiting other stores helped us to really consider and understand how things like lighting, space, visual merchandising and music can really make a difference to the experience of shopping.
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