Yesterday as the rain and wind lashed London Chad and I decided to go hit Westfield – the latest (and pretty much only) mega mall in our fair capital.  We got to avoid the foul weather (which by the way continues today) and I was on a mission to revamp my wardrobe (too many things with holes in them is my excuse).  It really struck me how different the retail experience can be going from shop to shop.

The way a shop looks, the way clothes are presented, your experience of the fitting rooms and the interaction with the staff make such a big difference to what you buy…

The way the shop looks, or to use the correct term (according to Chad who works in fashion), the shop fit, does make a massive difference to how long you want to hang out in a shop. Now Westfield is a very smart mall and as a result the shops housed in this retail mecca are, I am guessing, the retailers ‘ideal’ shop fit.  Other than the retailers flagship store (that may or may not be in London) they are really setting out to sell the brand to its full potential.

So my shop fit observations from yesterday are…

Ted Baker– a cool shop, really quirky little collections of objects (such as old fashioned prize cups and glass jars) that make you want to hunt out gems from the clothing racks.  I did really try to find something to buy in there – I really wanted to but couldn’t find anything I liked.  But the way the shop looked created a real desire to want to.  BOUGHT NOTHING BUT WANTED TO :+(

Pull and Bear – maybe I am just getting too old but it was far too dark in the shop for me.  After five minutes of searching (longer than I would normally give it but Chad loves their stuff) I sacked it off as I was getting eye strain from trying to work out the colours. BOUGHT NOTHING AND WANTED TO GET OUT OF THE SHOP :+)

The way the clothes are displayed and the fitting room also make a massive difference…

Esprit – the men’s floor is nice and open with enough space so that you can stand back and see everything easily.  One particular section had checked flannel-look shirts in great colours (plum, grey and olive green).  Now this is a look that I have never considered for myself before (I am all about the stripe).  I took it all in, said to Chad: ‘I really like this but I think I’m too old for it’, walked away and then as we walked out of the store and did a U-turn.  I went back to the display, picked two shirts, tried them on in the decent sized fitting room and loved them both.  BOUGHT TWO SHIRTS WHICH CAUGHT MY EYE BECAUSE OF THE DISPLAY :+)

Gap – not sure why they ended up with such a small shop (not usual for them) but they have crammed the clothes in to the rafters – the men’s section is rubbish at Westfield.  I went in to get some t-shirts to go under my new checked shirts (that’s the look you know – which the display and Chad had taught me!).  Gap actually had three perfect coloured t-shirts – but I had to fight to find them (tucked away on silly little shelves).  BOUGHT THREE T-SHIRTS BUT GOT HOT UNDER THE COLLAR DOING SO :+(

Zara – well the menswear section looked like a bleeding jumble sale – just piles and piles of messy clothes.  The big problem here is that nearly half of the clothes are folded in piles on high shelves above the hanging rails.  So to see what the item is you have to take it off the shelf, unravel it – take a look and then you plonk it back disappointed on the shelf.  I probably unwrapped about thirty items in my hunt (multiply this up with other ‘hunters’ and you get the aforementioned jumble sale).  This is a really annoying way to display clothes – you get so frustrated.

The reason that I went in Zara was that when I was in Hong Kong last week I managed to get to some shops before the flight home.  The Zara store in HK was huge – really nicely displayed, all in clear sections, one of which screamed ‘Neil’ and hey presto I bought quite a few things.  The Westfield Zara is a total disaster.  Again, like Gap the menswear section is too small to have everything in it – plus the fitting rooms are totally rubbish.  The cubicle it totally inadequate: too small, it only has two or three rubbish hooks and no chair or even a ledge to put your own clothes on (so you have to dump your own clothing on the floor!).  This leads me to…

How a shop assistant can make a BIG difference (for good or bad!)…

Zara (continued) – there were LOADS of staff in Zara, and most of them seemed more interested in chatting to each other than (a) tidying up the mass of clothes flung all over the place, (b) helping customers.  I asked the girl on the fitting room if they had any more colours of the cotton cardigan I was wearing (purchased in HK).  She just huffed at me and told me: ‘to look on the shop floor for it – everything we have is out there’.  Great, thanks love, nice work, what an ambassador for your employer.  This made me REALLY cross and I wanted to exit the shop immediately but I had a really nice t-shirt in my hand that I wanted and Chad had already selected a chunky Nordic looking (ugly – but apparently this is a good look) jumper.  So we go in the queue of four people and waited ages to be served, the reason being that the chaps on the till where more interested in talking to each other (actually about shop stuff) but it meant they just ignored the customer – poor form.  BOUGHT A T-SHIRT (AND THE UGLY JUMPER FOR CHAD) BUT LEFT THE SHOP FEELING REALLY ANGRY AND BADLY TREATED :+((

Interestingly Chad kept seeing ‘ugly’ jumpers in all the other shops and we kept on trying to decide whether the ones we were seeing were better than the Zara one.  In the end the decision was that the Zara jumper won (and hence wasn’t returned) – but the experience that we had in Zara almost made us want to replace it.

Now you might be asking: did anyone (other than Esprit) actually get it right on this shopping trip or is this just a rant Mr Crump?  Well I am pleased to say a big bouncy yes.  A new brand that I have never heard of called…

COS – this is a new find for me and I am SO happy about it. I loved nearly every piece of clothing in there.  I will be going back lots – I even signed-up to their mailing list so that they can keep in contact – I want to know more about them.  Why? Well as I said I really liked the clothes which is clearly the number one factor but the whole experience was a total pleasure. Nearly all (I think it might have been all) the clothes are on hangers which meant you could just flick through them really easily – they are all kept in size order going from small to extra large – excellent.  The fitting room had plenty of room.  The shop assistants were really helpful and the stunning lady on the till was a breath of fresh air and chatted to me about the brand (they are Swedish [turns out they are owned by H&M], they have other stores on Regents Street etc) – she promptly me to sign up for the mailing list.  It was a brilliant clothes shopping experience.  BOUGHT A PAIR OF TROUSERS, A CARDIGAN, A T-SHIRT, TWO SHIRTS AND SKIPPED OUT OF THE SHOP WITH A HUGE SMILE ON MY FACE :+)) :+))

So there you go folks.  Sometimes you buy things in shops because you have to – the item wins out, but with my no refund culture hat on:

• New brands can excite you – tell you what they are about and make you just want to hang out with them.  I am really interested to find out what the e-communications experience with Cos is going to be like (I really want them to be great)
• Established brands that disappoint might get a sale but you aren’t going to run back to engage with them – the Gap experience was not good.  I know that they do ‘battery’ clothing but this store is nothing like the normal ones – too small, too crammed and reminds you that the item that you just bought is also being worn by about a million other people around the world
• Poor customer service has the power to elicit powerful emotions.  One rotten apple (or a whole bowl of them as in one of the examples above) makes a massive difference.

Interestingly Mary Portas (known as Mary Queen of Shops here in the UK) did the PR launch of Westfield with her agency Yellow Door (not sure if they still look after them).  She is a retail strategy guru who has had TV shows looking at the topics I have mentioned in this post.

She also did a great programme looking at charity retailing – attempting to lift the charity shop from dusty to lusty.  As a result of this show I actually pop into my local charity shop now to try and look for gems (although my Oxfam in Camden looks good it has rubbish stock).  This was actually the main thrust of her mission:  better stock equals more customer pull equals more sales at a higher price which means, abracadabra, more money for the charity.  Well I have been through my wardrobe (adding in my new culls) and undertaken a big purge.  So my cast-offs (that included three Hugo Boss shirts that I have never worn) are destined for Oxfam on Camden High Street tomorrow – someone might like them.

Anyway I’m off to find out more about COS on the interweb… woo hoo.