RETAIL LOGIC
JOHN
RYAN
head downhill. The peach theme of the windows
continues and is combined with semi-peach
coloured faux-wood fl oors.
In the mid-shop, a peach coloured carpet soaks
up the light from overhead and a peach neon
glow, produced from hidden luminaires, is used to
pick out the shape of the white ceiling raft.
Now look at the stock and the fi xtures that
contain it. Old-fashioned, tiered card gondolas
house the bulk of the mid-shop offer and where
there are pillars, these have been clad with vinyl-
wood slat-wall – something that most retailers
abandoned as a display modus operandi before
the turn of the millennium.
And then there are the balloons, lots of them,
festooned across the shop and fastened to the
fi xtures with pieces of sellotape, rather detracting
from the spanking new shop-fi t. These originate
from the “balloon station” at the back of the shop,
which serves little purpose other than to provide
visual pollutants across the rest of the store.
Overall, the effect is saccharine, looking like
the kind of colour scheme that might have been
chosen for an adolescent female bedroom in the
Clinton cards may still be the biggest independent 1980s. It’s all very My Little Pony, militating
retailer of cards on the high street but many of the
against it being a fi rst choice greetings card store,
stores are looking a little tired. John Ryan is less
particularly in the face of stiff competition from
the likes of nearby Paperchase and WH Smith.
than impressed.
But the really alarming point, from a corporate
tand in front of the Clinton Cards store
perspective, is that this is as good as it gets. The
Just
S
at London’s Westfi eld shopping centre
Westfi eld store is in fact the latest and greatest
and the message in the window is
Clinton Cards. For a more typical piece of Clinton
unambiguous: “When only the best is
high street action, look no further than the south
good enough”. The line is picked out
London suburb of Wallington.
in dark peach with the “best” part underlined and
Peachy
Here, a much smaller unit couples the slat-
written in the italic style that is also central to the
walls, gondolas and peach colour scheme with a
Clinton logo.
card range that pushes no boundaries.
This in turn is set against a light peach
The problem for Clinton Cards, it would
background and then, like almost every other store
appear, is that what might have seemed perfectly
in this west London shopping behemoth, there are a
reasonable in the 1980s carries little cachet a
series of posters announcing the fact that a “huge”
quarter of a century later: retailing and retail
sale is underway.
design have moved on. Clintons has stuck to its
So far, so normal, albeit that the choice of colour
design guns over a period when a fair degree of
scheme looks out of kilter with retail norms. It’s
pretty unsubtle updating would have been entirely
when you step across the threshold that things
appropriate.
Putting things right will not be easy, but a
“Alarmingly, this is as
good start might be changing the colour palette,
substituting black, white and a primary colour for
good as it gets. The
peach.
Westfi eld store is in
Abandoning the use of carpet mats could then
fact the latest and
be carried out with in-store product zoning being
achieved through colour. Attacking the product
greatest Clinton Cards”
range would have to go hand in hand with this,
although, if anything, would be even more
diffi cult than altering the in-store landscape. It
looks like a long, hard road for Clintons.
l John Ryan covers store design and visual
merchandising for Retail Week
18
www.greetingstoday.co.uk
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