The past few years have centred on making shopping hyper-convenient. What, then, makes people still want to visit physical stores?
After global lockdown periods, when many people were forced to use digital shopping tools, shoppers are now even more aware of what they're looking for when it comes to a physical experience. At Selfridges, we’ve always thought of ourselves as being more than a shop.
We’re very much about creating a destination and a physical experience that is about the unexpected joy of discovery. In a physical environment, you are immersed in a world of opportunity. The physical environments that we create at Selfridges are as much about the curation of the experience as they are about the curation of the product.
Post-lockdown, what has been the priority for the type of experiences that Selfridges curates?
We create environments that change according to how we want people to feel. At the moment, for example, our Super Futures concept is about exploring the very best version of yourself. Through this concept, we explore everything from spirituality to sexual health, all through immersive and experiential in-store touchpoints. Our stores are physically designed to offer as much flexibility as possible. And each one of the stores is also designed to reflect the locations they're in. We work with local makers, for example, to bring their products into the stores. We consider it as hyper-curating for different communities.
