RETAILING
Interiors retailer, Habitat unveiled the first of two new stand-alone flagship stores this month. We take a closer look at the outlet in shopping centre, Westfield London.
T
he opening represents an investment of £1.5million from owner Sainsbury’s, with
Habitat celebrating the milestone of its first stand-alone store in nearly 10 years. The retail chain has put openings on hold since its acquisition by private equity firm Hilco in 2009. The iconic interiors brand has changed hands twice since then; first being bought by Home Retail Group in 2011, which saw the chain close all but its three London stores in Tottenham Court Road,
24 DIY WEEK 28 SEPTEMBER 2018
Kings Road and Finchley Road, and secondly in April 2016, when Sainsbury’s
staged a £1.4billion
takeover of Habitat and Argos. Sainsbury’s investment in the brand has seen the opening of a mini Habitat showroom alongside an Argos in Leeds and 11 mini Habitat stores within Sainsbury’s supermarkets.
The closure of
Habitat’s King’s Road store means the brand new Westfield store will stand as one of the group’s three flagship London outlets. Forming part of the Westfield shopping mall’s new ‘Home’ hub, the new 4,700sq ft store - now Habitat’s third largest store in the
UK, has been designed by Habitat’s own in-house Design Studio and will carry more than 1,400 products from the Habitat collection across, furniture, lighting, textiles and home accessories.
Habitat managing director
Clare Askem says: “Working with Westfield London to create a major new homeware destination for London has been a hugely exciting project to be part of and we think a fitting location in which to launch our first stand-alone Habitat store for 10 years.
“As we evolve the Habitat brand
we’re conscious of catering for customers who increasingly want
HABITAT OPENS FIRST NEW FLAGSHIP STORE IN A DECADE
the choice of shopping in stores or online in a way that suits them. Alongside good digital growth, we’ve seen a great reaction to our store format trials, which allow customers to interact with our products in different retail environments. Westfield London will be our first large format store to offer customers a new immersive Habitat shopping experience within a major shopping mall and is aimed at those that who want the convenience of different fashion, home and entertainment retailers in one easy to shop location.” The new Habitat store has been designed to have a minimalist feel
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