Creating a ‘store of the future’ that will remain relevant is challenging, but Sainsbury’s refurbished Nine Elms store could stand the test of time.

There are few things in retail that are as likely to disappoint as a ‘store of the future’. For the most part these are expensive white elephants where the bulk of what is new doesn’t make it beyond the shop that contains it. Then it becomes a ‘concept store’, which probably means that money has been wasted.

Therefore any invitation to a store of the future from a retailer should be treated with trepidation – and when Sainsbury’s is the outfit in question, a mix of interest and scepticism. Sainsbury’s has just come to the end of a long, root and branch refurbishment of its Nine Elms store in London’s Vauxhall and, from the outside, it is certainly different from what you’d expect of the grocer.

“It is certainly different from what you’d expect of the grocer”

This is a big, 61,000 sq ft store with a long frontage on the road that starts at the Vauxhall tube and overland stations and heads west, following the course of the Thames. As such it has a lot of drive-by traffic and is in the middle of an area where new river-facing penthouses seem to appear every couple of weeks.

For Sainsbury’s, this means a store where the frontage is a mix of a smooth white rendering and long glass windows, some of which are clear, while others are off-white or copper-tinted in colour.

At first glance, this looks like a two-level supermarket. But in fact the ground level is a car park, with long travelators taking shoppers up to the first floor that is home to the whole of the offer, with the exception of the café located on a mezzanine level.

Above there are brand new luxury flats: this is a mixed-used redevelopment with the residential element helping to finance the remodelling of the store that has been in place for 32 years, and which was a ‘store of the future’ back in the 1980s.

New initiatives

Heading inside and pausing for a moment to admire the huge food mural that fills the wall directly behind the travelator, the first impression is of a massive space with a very high ceiling. Glance left and there is the usual line of checkouts stretching into the distance.

But what matters about Nine Elms, and what shoppers will feel is different about the store, is the combination of Argos and Habitat shop-in-shops, as well as a raft of new merchandising initiatives.

Sainsbury's Nine Elms

Sainsbury’s Nine Elms

Chief executive Mike Coupe in the mini Argos store

Starting from the right side of the shop where the travelator deposits the shopper, the first thing that is encountered is the Tu clothing offer.

Chief executive Mike Coupe asks: “How do you make supermarkets more attractive places to shop?” He answers his own question, saying: “Our clothing space looks more like a department store.”

It is a move away from the supermarket private label approach that uses multiple shelves to display the product.

In Nine Elms, this means a linear arrangement along one side of shop, with the offer arranged by gender and age and with large, metallic-finished square arches acting as beacons and introducing the various category areas.

As far as the merchandising is concerned, the clothes are hung rather than laid, but it would be something of a stretch to label this a ‘department store’ display, and fashion shop-in-shops are something that Tesco has also been running for a while. That said, the display is mid-market, which seems appropriate for the location.

A grocer at heart

Move beyond the clothing and adjacent homewares and the fresh offer impresses.

Coupe points to the “open and more spacious produce section” which is part of “making [the] food offer more distinctive” and, of course, reminding shoppers that food remains Sainsbury’s raison d’être.

“Move beyond the clothing and adjacent homewares and the fresh offer impresses”

Nowhere is this more obvious than along the back wall, where a series of counters – fishmonger, patisserie, butcher, takeaway and delicatessen – are placed next to each other to form a Sainsbury’s Food Hall.

Each of the counters has been given separate treatment, with white back-wall tiles uniting the whole. In place of the usual Sainsbury’s orange spanning the overhead space, a different colour has been used for each counter, providing definition and making it feel like a series of discrete shops.

A new retail habitat

Discrete shops are a running theme at Nine Elms and beside with the Food Hall is Habitat.

Since it became part of the Sainsbury’s empire, following the break-up and sale of the Home Retail Group, there has been a waiting game to see how Habitat might be fitted into a Sainsbury’s store.

Nine Elms is the first branch to host the furniture retailer and, despite there being a mild disconnect with what most people think of when they picture Sainsbury’s, there is no sense of it being out of place.

“The much greater footfall in a Sainsbury’s, over a Homebase, should serve the brand well”

Habitat shop-in-shops had been a growing part of the Homebase offer prior to the Home Retail sale and Sainsbury’s Argos boss John Rogers expresses mild surprise that Australian retailer Bunnings chose not to buy it as part of the Homebase deal. Calling it “the hidden gem of the acquisition”, he says that it is a “great business” – a view backed by Habitat managing director Clare Askem, who says that the much greater footfall in a Sainsbury’s, over a Homebase, should serve the brand well.

The store itself is in many ways an identikit, albeit smaller, version of the shop-in-shops that were becoming a feature in Homebase stores, right down to the chequerboard floor and lightboxes.

A ‘no-compromise’ shop-in-shop

At the other end of the Nine Elms store is Argos. Bertrand Bodson, chief digital and marketing officer at Sainsbury’s Argos, says that prior to the sale, Sainsbury’s and Argos had been “dating” for some time and that what is on view in Nine Elms is a direct descendent of the store at Old Street that opened around three years ago.

“Is this a store of the future? The answer has to be an emphatic yes”

The difference between this in-store Argos and a standalone version is that here there are only 12,000 items that are available to be bought now, with the rest of the range being offered on an order basis. Digitally, this is a no-compromise shop-in-shop and the curved terminals where customers can browse look appropriately contemporary.

Is this a store of the future? The answer has to be an emphatic yes.

Coupe comments: “We have a lot of space and increasingly that space is being used in a different way.” In Sainsbury’s Nine Elms, shoppers can get a sense of what the next few years will look like for the retailer. Fewer gadgets and gimmickry; more ideas about merchandising and use of space. It makes sense.

Sainsbury’s Nine Elms

Building status

Refurbishment

Size

61,000 sq ft

Ambience

Contemporary

Highlight

The Food Hall

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