NEWS EXTRA


HABITAT


UNVEILS THIRD LARGEST STORE


Home retailer, Habitat has opened its new 6,500sq ft stand-alone flagship store in Brighton, as part of the 1.3 acre Hannington Estate redevelopment. DIY Week takes a closer look at how the store’s design and merchandising works to shape the customer journey.


centre store in a decade. Located on North Street and leading into Meeting House Lane, the new store, has been designed by Habitat’s own in-house design studio and carries more than 3,000 products from the Habitat collection across, furniture, lighting, textiles and home accessories. “This


T is our first city-centre


flagship store for 10 years, so a really exciting development for Habitat and an example


of how we’re


evolving store formats and services to suit how customers are shopping for homewares,” explained Habitat managing director Clare Askem. Habitat has made significant investment in the digital side of the business, including a comprehensive upgrade of the habitat.co.uk website and, as a result, around 65% of Habitat sales originate online. However, the business still recognises the importance of having a physical estate of shops. “As our digital sales go from


strength to strength, we’re also seeing customers who want to shop in an immersive environment and touch and feel the Habitat products we create. Our long heritage with Brighton means we have many fans who have been asking us to return with a city-centre store, so we felt that to launch our first inspirational flagship environment would really work here.


“Since we’ve opened our doors we’ve had a phenomenal reaction from customers delighted to see us back. We’re now looking forward to making this store a real design hub for Brighton by


10 DIY WEEK 23 NOVEMBER 2018


he new opening, now Habitat’s third-largest store in the UK, marks the retailer’s first standalone city-


creating an inspiration atmosphere in which to shop with regular local collaborations and customer workshops to hero the creative spirit of the city.”


The new Brighton store joins


three other flagship Habitat outlets: a 25,000sq ft store on Tottenham Court Road, an 18,000 sq ft outlet on Finchley Road and the 4,700sq ft branch that opened in London Westfield last summer, as well as a 2,000sq ft Habitat Mini store in Leeds. There are also 11 Mini Habitat stores in Sainsbury’s supermarkets – all occupying the same 2,000sq ft footprint and carrying around 600 products. Habitat has been able


to take


advantage of the Sainsbury’s store network to expand its choice of delivery options to include click and collect from 2,300 locations. The new Brighton store, which employs 17 staff, is housed across


ground and basement floors with a pared back, industrial look.


By design


Describing the design of the new flagship store, Habitat explains that “metallic piping is


left exposed,


along with raw concrete surfaces and exposed brick walls painted white to create a pure interior framework”. Customers are first greeted by a central metal stairwell painted in a vivid blue, complete with a glass wrap-around balustrade allowing shoppers to see directly down into the larger basement level from street level. A dramatic lighting installation hangs above this staircase which will be change regularly with new lighting designs. Oak flooring is used throughout


the store but a


checkerboard tile floor, to the right of the store entrance, outlines an installation space area within the


windows that will house special collections, workshops and events. The ground floor is mainly allocated to dining, tableware, upholstery and home accessories. Downstairs, a glass ‘goldfish bowl’ halfway down the stairs allows an uninterrupted view into the basement below which features bedroom furniture, office, and textiles.


Black and white checkerboard flooring is also used towards the back of the store within a bright lighting


department to visually


attract attention and draw customers further into the basement space. “It’s been important for us to give each new store a unique personality that feels relevant to the building and location it’s in but with each project we’ve created a very pure white base that will really showcase the products, colour and bold pattern we create,” says Habitat senior designer Matthew Long.


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