It’s extremely exciting news for all kids (big ones too!) across Scotland to learn that a new Hamleys store is to open in Glasgow – the first in the UK outside of London since opening in 1760.
With not only high demand for their world-famous product lines, there were over 1500 applicants for the new store’s 40 permanent positions. A telling sign of how dear people hold the toyshop retailer to their hearts.
Hamleys originally started out as a toyshop called Noah’s Ark in High Holborn, London back in 1760, but took on its latterday magnificence when founder William Hamley’s grandsons opened up the world famous Regent Street store in London. During the Blitz, the store was bombed 5 times while its dedicated team served in tin hats from the shop’s entrance.
In a new £100million shopping centre in Glasgow, the store will take up an entire floor that’s so big it would cover an entire football pitch.
Opening mid-November, the store’s management team is making bold promises to unveil more of the infamous Hamleys magic that attracts over 8 million visitors each year to the 7-storey Regent Street store in London.
First up at the 25,000sq ft St Enoch Centre store will be special Christmas snow scene store displays, children’s parties and sleepovers, to be followed later next year by an in-store beach.
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It’s an interesting proposition; with waves of booklovers migrating to the use of electronic readers and buying e-books (waterstones.com sells approximately 30 e-books per hour from its stock of 15,000 titles) – will it mean both a demise in traditional tactile bookselling and an onslaught of inventive store displays to compete with Amazon, their online foe?
Despite the hit the bookselling market has already taken from Sony’s Reader product, Amazon will be launching their own version of the e-reader, the Kindle internationally this month, finally allowing UK users to purchase the wireless wonder than can download books in less than a minute via 3G technology. Launched to the US in late 2007, it is estimated that there will be over a million users of the Kindle by the end of 2009.
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Disney have been “dreaming big” after receiving support from Apple big-wig Steve Jobs during their latest rebranding exercise. Jobs’ “dream big” mantra is responsible for Apple’s hit retail design concept of iconically styled stores with vast glass and granite surfaces.
Disney will be remodelling its 340 American and European stores following their consultation with the Apple boss and providing a visionary “Imagination Park” in place of each store, and bucking the trend of simply refurbishing and churning out old hat concepts.
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It’s definitely the season for it as stores worldwide get ghostly in preparation for Halloween, but some retailers are taking the theme further than what’s deemed appropriate or necessary by the public and producing window displays that are considered irresponsible and terrifying.
Marc Jacobs is one such designer. Across the US, his stores have been plastered with decidedly ghoulish “psychotic clown massacre” displays that many people are finding simply too much to stomach.
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Design4retail just couldn’t ignore the window display ideas from ja! studio.
The shop window displays are so unusual and really stand out as works of art as much as anything else.
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100 years ago 90,000 people flocked through the doors on the opening day of the Oxford street Selfridges store.
Over those 100 years there have been many iconic window displays and they have always been a leader in the world of retail design.
Design4retail love this recent window display that appeared in the London Selfridges department store.
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Design4retail are always interested in looking at different ways in which companies brand their products.
Kellogg’s latest idea caught design4retail’s eye after they are said to be branding their cereal in ways that we would never have imagined.
They are looking to use a laser to display their brand clearly across each and every cornflake that the put in their Cornflakes box.
A limited number of boxes filled with their laser branded cereal will be put into production before they decide whether or not to brand some cereal pieces in every box.
Kellogg’s have embarked on this project to further emphasise the fact that they do not produce cereal for any other brand.
This includes the cheaper supermarket brands that have been keen to package their cereals in boxes with many similarities.
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It is an occupational hazard of jewellers worldwide that they will undoubtedly attract thieves to their window booty.
Until now, there’s been very few solutions and there were certainly none available that were both non-violent or without damage to products. An innovative new intruder security system that fits within existing window display areas and is triggered by existing panic buttons or the newer wireless fobs has put an end to all that though.
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It’s as ridiculous as it sounds. Imagine wandering down your local high street doing your regular window-licking and you spot a couple of sheep roaming around in a shop window munching on some weeds.
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Exciting times are afoot as we discover that UK traders will soon be banned from displaying cigarettes in shops in the government’s latest bid to reduce the number of under-age smokers.
In a true battle of the wills, one of the country’s leading QCs Lord Pannick advised the government to inform the European Commission before passing any laws that would prohibit the display of cigarettes in stores.
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