Is there any reason that a flagship has to be in central London and is it better to focus on other locations and to make more profit?

Is there any reason that a flagship has to be in central London and is it better to focus on other locations and to make more profit?

Normally, the majority of retailers opening a flagship aim to make it somewhat different from what shoppers might see elsewhere. And for most the first step is to think London, the idea being that the capital is somehow special and visitors who shop it do so with the expectation that they will find bigger, better stores with enhanced ranges.

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. Last week, fashion retailer Warehouse opened its “first ever London flagship”, to use the words of chief executive Liz Evans. This in itself is curious, given that this is a London-based retailer, but up to now its flagship firepower has been focused elsewhere.

Indeed in recent times, if you had wanted to see the best that Warehouse has to offer, you would have needed to travel to Leeds (the Trinity Leeds shopping centre ), Belfast or Bristol. All of these are, of course, major centres in their own right, but they are not for the most part destinations that most retailers would consider as potential flagship locations.

Warehouse has in fact done that which would seem best when creating a destination store. By definition, beyond London’s West End rents in the UK will be lower and therefore there is probably more money in place to open a bells and whistles shop without impacting too heavily on profitability. This also means that spending money on designing an interior that will engage, generally pricey, is less onerous than might be the case in central London.

The outcome is that a new flagship store design can be test-driven, wrinkles ironed out and a template perfected long before it reaches the place where running costs will be highest.

In the case of the Warehouse Oxford Street store what is on view is a refinement of the “loft living” concept that has been developed for it by Brown Studio and which has been installed in branches beyond the capital. There are, naturally, a few “exclusives” (that’s what it says on the label) as far as the ranges are concerned, which are unique to this branch, but this flagship is ostensibly similar to what can be seen elsewhere, albeit the internal geography is different.

All of which makes sense. Just because a store happens not to be in London is there any particular reason why it shouldn’t be as good as what can be found in the capital? Perhaps flagships really can work outside London. They will almost certainly be more profitable.