The highly targeted retail offers found in airports are part of an experience economy that makes shoppers shop.

What do you go to the airport for? Well, obviously, to go shopping, why else would you subject yourself to a closed environment filled with masses of people all of whom seem to be in a frantic hurry? Pay a visit to Gatwick’s South Terminal at the moment however , it’s just at the end of a major refurb, and you’ll see considerably more retail innovation than you’re likely to encounter on most UK high streets.

Yet the question is why shoppers think that airports are good places to buy, say, a Prada bag (available in Heathrow’s Terminal 5), a pair of Dior shoes (same place), or a pair of Bluetooth speakers that will amplify the tracks on your smart-phone (South Terminal Dixons Travel)? The answer is simple. It’s about being bored and having to hang around for a while. Oh yes, and a mindset where a release from mundane reality may be on the cards, for a while at least. Suddenly the credit card bill seems to matter less and hey, you’re off to foreign climes before it arrives anyway.

For retailers, there is of course the little matter of footfall. So many people pass through these places that if you can’t make it here, you probably can’t make it anywhere. Things that sell generally have to be portable or capable of being worn, naturally, but even this may not be the case as buying at the airport and then collecting on your way back, or having something delivered to your doorstep, are also options.

A supplementary question therefore would be how can you put shoppers in a similar frame of mind on high streets as they appear to be in when spending an hour or two at an airport? Not easy and economic reality tends to exert itself rather more strongly when you’re in Dudley, Derby or Doncaster (not to mention the general scarcity of Prada bags), than is the case in Terminal 5 or South Terminal.

Airports are however, to an extent, part of the ‘experience economy’ - places where you start a short period of getting away from it all and having fun. This is perhaps where high streets could and should learn a few lessons from airports. Airport retail offers are incredibly targeted in a way that high streets are not. More focus and more fun instead of a catch-all blunderbuss approach. There are lessons to be learned from the big airports.

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