Flagships: Form over Function?

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Welcome to Wednesday, futurists. 

📧I write this from the back of an Uber at the tail-end of a brief 10-hour trip to New York City. This morning I spoke at the Association of National Advertiser’s annual Email Experience Conference, sharing with them the changes happening in Gen Alpha, multiplayer dynamics in Gen Z, and radical design “overcorrections” taking place in eCommerce.

🏆‘Friend of the pod’ and legendary email expert Karen Talavera was present, and accepted an award for thought leadership among the many members of the ANA, which include brands like VS&Co, Saucony, IBM, and more.

🇬🇧Today we’re excited to bring back The London Brief, our summer series, which will now become a regular editorial feature. With it, we welcome Miya Knights as an editorial contributor.

🚨🚨VISIONS Summit: Los Angeles is two weeks away🚨🚨 This event combines futurism, commerce, and cultural analysis under one room in a half-day forum and networking. Grab your ticket: futurecommerce.com/visions

Welcome back to The London Brief. The return of this column to Future Commerce is heralded by the addition of retail technology expert, author, and analyst Miya Knights to the Future Commerce Expert Network.

Each month, Miya will deliver incisive commentary on the development of commerce and culture; beginning in London, and eventually zooming out to the whole of retail and commerce development in the United Kingdom.

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We’ve all heard the phrase: “form over function”. But what does it really mean? More importantly for this column, Future Commerce readers, why is it so relevant to the role of the store? 

Today, a store that’s fit for purpose can no longer afford to be purely transactional.

 Those most functional categories, such as grocery, tend towards low value, touch, and high volumes tend towards low value, touch, and high volumes, such as grocery. We know you can’t put the digital “genie” back in its bottle and throttle less- profitable home deliveries here. When scanning, bagging, and paying for our stuff before they ask if you’re a loyal customer, the average grocery store experience is almost purely transactional and, therefore, pretty poor.

 Meanwhile, locking up goods—as often seen in US drugstores—is mercifully uncommon in most London stores. 

The Flagship: Form vs. Function

At the opposite end of the scale— high value, high touch and low volume—we have Gentle Monster, the Korean eyewear brand is known for its eclectic store designs. When one point of purchase expert visited its Singapore store recently, he described it in a LinkedIn post as: “A blue sky idea that ignores the budget and lets the creative director go wild.” The post made me think: “I bet that sent a shiver down the commercial director’s spine!”

Indeed, the closure of its European flagship, surrealist and science-fiction-inspired store on London’s Argyll Street during the pandemic underscored the innate need to balance creativity and commercial viability. What’s a store if it doesn’t sell stuff? This balance is crucial, especially in a city like London, where form without function has no place in its flagship shopping centers.

However, does this mean that art only belongs in a museum? I agree with retailers being merchant curators, assembling a gallery of brands to delight and surprise customers. But, ideally, their stores need to strike the right balance and provide a space where both culture and commerce can thrive. This may be why Gentle Monster has entrusted its European flagship presence in London to Selfridges. Selfridges, a renowned department store, is known for its ability to blend experience, immersion and inspiration, all in the service of higher conversion. It also uses digital technology to inform and transact. It plays a culturally local role while using technology to not only trade globally but also recognize and reward its loyal patrons, wherever they are.

🔮More Reading: Selfridges: An Analysis of UK Retail [The London Brief]

 My challenge within the realm of UK retail has always been to explore the concept of “form over function” as it is being challenged and redefined, especially in the context of flagship stores against a backdrop increasingly shaped by digital. Stores are no longer mere transactional spaces but must evolve into experiential destinations with a purpose – to convert browsers into buyers.

 The case of Gentle Monster in London exemplifies this shift.

– Miya