The American Mind Cannot Comprehend UK Retail

This week our summer series The London Brief continues with a deep dive on the unfathomable scale of UK experiential retail, and a firsthand account of the city block often mistaken for a department store: Selfridges.

We’ll unpack an American point-of-view on the de-facto Commerce Mecca, and what American digital experience and commerce can learn from it. 

“I Wasn’t Familiar With Your Game, Selfridges”

The London Brief: Issue #2

Welcome back to our summer series covering the thriving retail scene happening in London. If you missed the first issue, you can catch up over here.

“Here ya go,” the attendant at KITH Treats says to me, moving in time to the familiar clack-clack of skate decks from the adjacent indoor skate bowl. In the corner of my eye a third group aims for a selfie with the fully-restored DeLorean; I turn my head to avoid photobombing the lively group.

KITH London is nestled on the second floor (of six) of the city block otherwise known as Selfridges. The experiential, monolithic, mecca of retail has been home to the now-iconic KITH since 2019. The shop-in-shop isn’t a pop-up, it’s a permanent retail location that includes the Treats ice cream shop and merch; which is what drew me to the location in the first place. And it’s one of more than 300 departments at the sprawling retailer.

In total, Selfridges comprises five acres of retail space—that’s over half-a-million square feet—and every inch of it is packed with people. Like every other British cultural institution: entry is free, and tourists and locals alike make use of it.

At noon on a Thursday, you’ll face what can only be described as a mass of humanity. This is the biggest difference between American and UK retail: in the UK there are scads of workers, attendants, security, doormen, and salespeople placed strategically around the shops, only to be outnumbered by hordes of shoppers, even during the weekday at lunchtime. Both are rarities in even the busiest NYC flagship stores.

Selfridges: The Miracle on Oxford Street

If there’s such a thing as American exceptionalism today, it ends at Macy’s.

While Macy’s boasts two times the selling square footage of Selfridges at its iconic, if not ‘miraculous’, NYC 34th Street/Herald Square location, it’s two times as boring, as well (and perhaps familiarity breeds contempt). In my own unscientific comparison, Macy’s lacks the prestige to attract modern and experiential brands.

The American mind cannot comprehend the size and scale of luxury retail in London. Well, of every cultural institution in London; Brits do it big. That said, Selfridges isn’t even the biggest, or most opulent, retailer in the UK. Harrod’s currently claims that distinction. But it’s the prestige and curation for a millennial consumer where Selfridges has cornered the market.

The 20,000 sq ft perfume hall features over 80 distinct brands; including those that would never pick up a phone for the Macy’s buyer, like Xerjoff and Amouage. From there, you can take a visit to the uncanny mechanical valley of a giant robotic head at Gentle Monster; the South Korean brand built by the “CEO of the Future,” Hankook Kim, who recognized that “sunglasses were made to accommodate Western faces.”

A brand that speaks directly to the affluent Asian shopper is right at home at Selfridges. Speaking with an industry analyst, the UK tourism market has rebounded since pre-Covid times, and is trending to best it in 2024; both data points are confirmed by tourism industry publication Skift.

What’s more, affluent Chinese shoppers find luxury goods in London are cheaper, and the service is better than what they find back home. “Retail tourism is very real here,” said analyst Maya Knights to me over coffee. “The service staff practically bend over backwards for an affluent Asian shopper.” From Aoyama Flower Market to Gentle Monster, from Ruka Curl Bar to CFCL, it’s stunning the quantity and scale of Asian brands that Selfridges has merchandised for itself through experiential retail partnerships.

Innovation and Synchronicity

The founding of Selfridges happened at a pivotal moment—in 1909—a year that has become a keen intersection of synchronicity for me, and for Future Commerce. Harry Gordon Selfridge opened the famed department store in March of 1909, and along with it innovations in insurance, finance, and fire suppression. The Futurism movement was also birthed in 1909; as was the incorporation of Palm Beach County, my now home.

Modern innovations are happening in the store today despite being considered laggards in eCommerce. A CV disguised as a case study by former FED John Kavanaugh explains that the eCom efforts at the brand have been piecemeal and splintered into “four shards” over nearly ten years. In 2014, Selfridges plunged £40M into a full-scale RWD site and commerce engine; but that modernization seems to be bespoke and not beholden to a particular platform; and I love it for that.

It feels right at home for a cultural institution that has outlived its many owners, housed in a building built before the modern, connected world. Traversing between the six retail floors stood at Oxford Street, you’d never know that its bones are 130 years young. For all its convenience; all its click & collect, you can’t catch the spirit of Selfridges in 1’s and 0’s. You get it when you stand in its hallowed halls.

Those in the UK understand; maybe they take it for granted. My American mind can barely comprehend it, in fact. It must be experienced to be believed.

— Phillip

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P.S. Don’t adjust your VISION. We’ll do it for you in this week’s episode of the VISIONS podcast. This season we’re playing panels from our NYC Summit in their entirety over on the podcast. Listen to the full discussion between journalist Hitha Herzog and author of the Embedded Substack, Kate Lindsay on Apple or Spotify.

‍P.P.S. Or watch all of the videos from VISIONS Summit: NYC, including Kyle Chayka and Alison Roman’s sessions, with the Future Commerce+ membership.