The electricals retailer’s new Travel store in Heathrow’s T3 aims to be gender-neutral and premium. John Ryan visits.

Putting a store into an airport is a different business from operating on a high street.

Rents are generally very much higher, browsing time is almost certainly more limited and large items are less likely to sell as they will not be carried onboard – which is still where most purchases are going to be taken.

It is also worth noting that there are substantial differences between both customers and their spending power in different airports.

“There’s a more affluent shopper in Terminal 3 and so we wanted to give our new store a more premium feel”

Heidi Woodhouse, Dixons Travel

As Heidi Woodhouse, managing director of Dixons Travel, notes, talking about Heathrow’s Terminal 3: “There’s a more affluent shopper in Terminal 3 and so we wanted to give our new store a more premium feel.”

The store in question is a 2,100 sq ft unit in a Heathrow terminal that is dominated by long-haul flights and from which many business-class passengers begin their non-British Airways journeys.

As such, it is very different from regional airports catering predominantly for tourists, a fact confirmed when Woodhouse says that among other things the T3 store targets shoppers with salaries in excess of £100,000.

Premium feel

Dixons Heathrow 13

Dixons Heathrow 13

The headphones selection

But what does all of this mean from an in-store perspective? The shop is actually a symmetrical box with one open side, giving passing shoppers a view from front to back.

The elongated goalpost that forms the entrance is internally lit and has a light beige pattern on it with the Dixons logo delineated in an unobtrusive black.

This is certainly more premium in feel than a standard Currys PC World Carphone Warehouse store, and while the fascia is eye-catching, it does not shout in the way that many electricals stores have a habit of doing.

It is also quite hard not to look into the store, owing to the fact that the upper perimeter is composed of screens along its entire length, around which content scrolls.

Woodhouse says that this works well for promotional purposes, as product information and products can be sent around the store and then come to rest above the perimeter module, where the specific item or brand is housed.

Closer to the entrance, however, the gaze will probably alight on the red lacquered sunglasses-clad French bulldog that sits on a plinth surrounded by headphones.

This is among the first things that the visitor will encounter, and with prices on this display ranging from £34.96 for a pair of Sony headphones to £331 for the Bang & Olufsen bins, there is something for most well-heeled shoppers.

Dixons Heathrow 6

Dixons Heathrow 6

The products are largely aimed at more prosperous customers

Something extra

The bulldog is symptomatic of much that has been done across this interior – it is about adding a little extra to what might otherwise be a perfectly functional, but possibly mundane, series of product vignettes.

“We’re competing with many others and therefore we asked how do you make a store exciting and also how do you bring it up to date. The other thing is how do we make it gender-neutral?”

Heidi Woodhouse, Dixons Travel

Woodhouse says that when considering the design for the T3 store, three questions were uppermost: “We’re competing with many others and therefore we asked how do you make a store exciting and also how do you bring it up to date. The other thing is how do we make it gender-neutral?”

Looking around the rest of the store, what is apparent is that this is a series of experiences, all of which take the products on offer as their starting point.

This means a virtual reality play area with the headsets on display ready to be test-driven, a FitBit space, complete with a screen showing a Workplace Race, and ‘live’ digital devices wherever the eye settles.

Gender-neutral?

Dixons Heathrow 3

Dixons Heathrow 3

Dyson hairdryers have pride of place

The other point about this store is its ‘gender-neutral’ credentials, as referenced by Woodhouse.

Superficially, there are more products that are likely to be used by women than in similar stores, with pride of place probably going to the range of Dyson hairdryers at around £300 a pop, although mention should also be made of the electronic skincare products from Foreo.

There is rather more to making a store less overtly masculine than putting in a few SKUs that will appeal to women.

Materials such as Corian, a herringbone floor treatment, first piloted in Stratford, and spot lighting and ‘mood’ ambient lighting, on the pillars, all contribute to a more gender-neutral environment, which is as likely to pull women as men across the threshold.

Chris Bright, design services director at Dixons Carphone, says this is a “concept store” and that “we’ll look to take aspects of what has been done elsewhere, where we can”.

Still to come are digital shelf-edge tickets, which should help with time-limited promotions and ongoing brand involvement with the project as a whole.

And Woodhouse says that the perimeter screens will mean that the store can be tailored to reflect the outgoing flights at a particular time of the day: “Fifty per cent of our customers will be international, so we have to look at how we appeal to them.”

It does look as if Dixons Travel has covered most of its upscale bases.

What makes this store different?

  • Upper perimeter promotional screens with flowing content
  • Experience is central to all displays
  • The product mix has been altered to appeal to women as well as men
  • The look and feel of the store is designed to be gender-neutral
  • ‘Time of day’ merchandising can be a reality thanks to the use of screens