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Designing the 'store of the future' - Q&A with Nic Criticos

1 Apr 2016

Woolworths is about to undergo a paradigm shift. "We are working on the 'store of the future', essentially," explains Nic Criticos, head of store design at Woolworths.

Nic Criticos, head of store design at Woolworths.

"Every store we design encompasses a bit of an evolution. We are always improving on past designs and taking lessons learned from previous stores and applying them – but never a complete change.

“This shift will influence the way customers see and experience shopping completely. Since we now share the same walkways with global players (and they with us), we need to have nothing short of a paradigm shift to in order to be able to continue to play competitively in that arena. It has been a long process, a lot of research and development was needed, and a lot of shifts in every area that you touch, be those architecture, lighting, air-conditioning, flooring, equipment, the way visual merchandising works, messaging, environmental design, cafes and food markets … every single element will change.”

The new store will be launched in the next few weeks, but in the interim, Criticos talks store design and trends leading innovation in the space…

What are the most important aspects to designing a Woolworths store?

A store does two things: Firstly, at its very core and when you get down to the basics of it, it is a machine designed for selling. Secondly, it’s also a branded building tool – it’s our space, which actually communicates our brand in the best possible way. So when considering the important aspects to designing a store, it’s always a balance of these two things.

The most important cue for me is whether the space itself portrays the Woolworths values and principles in terms of what our brand stands for; and then: Does it meet all the operational aspects in terms of customer experience and how efficient it is as a retail machine? You need to balance these very carefully because there are a lot of subtleties that actually make it work.

If I am looking for two outcomes rather than aspects – my first and foremost is to wow customers in that they know they have arrived in an amazing space and they are immersed in the brand when they walk into a store. Secondly, I want them to shop seamlessly. The more they put in their trolleys the more successful the space is.

What have been the biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge is meeting the different expectations of many different people at the same the time. This includes customers and staff.

Our business is very complex – selling, management, operations, marketing – and we need to ensure that our store environments are answering each of their specific requirements. The different departments within our business each have their own objectives and they all need the store to deliver on those specific goals. Sometimes these needs conflict with other departments, sometimes they align. The challenge is combining these requirements effectively to provide one consistent compelling design solution.

For example, the key focus within marketing is to ensure that customers feel the brand the minute they cross the store threshold; and to hold their attention until they pay and exit the building. Design has to consider this, but it also has to consider where the café is, how people move, what they are drawn to, where customers pay.

Designing the 'store of the future' - Q&A with Nic Criticos

I believe that we are globally in tune in terms of the way stores are designed and the way we respond to a space. It’s a very challenging design process. We need to ensure we are globally on trend and, at the same time, communicate that we are locally grounded, while still maintaining the principles of the Woolworths brand.

For me, design is what gets me up in the morning – but the difficult part is anticipating how customers are going to read and immerse themselves in the space. Customer immersion is a critical success factor. When you walk into a store, you need to feel the energy of the store, what the shopping patterns are, where the customers are, where they start to register and engage with the space.

I am very fortunate that I get the opportunity to travel a lot for my role – we have to. By visiting international stores, we are able to bring best-of-breed experiences and knowledge back and apply it to our stores. This international benchmarking is applied across the board in the store environment, from the Woolworths operation principles, to the typology, or the language of the interior architecture. We work hard to integrate global trend with local expression, often marrying the two together in a proudly local brand that stands comfortably locally, but is informed by global best practice.

What are some of the trends you're seeing in modern supermarket design?

There are so many trends at the moment it is difficult to say conclusively what the defining trends are – because retail morphs, it evolves, it is retrospective, and looks into the future constantly.

The trends will move according to the way that society moves, or the way that fashion dictates or the way that people’s taste evolves.

Still, there are a number of trends that stand out, which I can touch on:

A big driver of change in retail is the fundamental shift in the way that people are shopping. They are doing a lot of online shopping, but they are also doing a lot of online investigative work before they head into a physical space.
Retail, in a way, has gone backwards. In the early 2000s customers were shopping in a physical space and then deciding they needed an online presence, to supplement their physical presence. Now businesses are starting off in the online environment and then realising they need a physical space. The realisation is that you are only going to get total customer immersion and understanding of brand in a tangible, physical space. Net A-Porter is a good example of an online store that has grown into a pop-up store, so customers can immerse themselves in the brand.
There is an amazing integration between the online and physical environments – connectivity and apps on phones that allow for geotagging and Bluetooth connectivity, where products can send messages to phones, which link to websites to allow for online purchases. Retailers also need to consider how customers engage with the digital experience within a store/the physical environment and the availability of digital in the store. They then need to focus on making those digital spaces an extension of their in-store sales team.
An amazing shift that is also defining retail at the moment, is that stores are no longer just a retail spaces, but are social hubs and places to meet. It is not enough to have a beautiful space anymore, we have to offer more to get customers to come into the store and shop in a physical environment rather than online. We, as retailers, need to have activities within the retail space other than shopping to entice people out of the convenience of the online environment. Burberry is a good example: they created a great space to lure you in; they have what can be described as a ‘temple or cathedral of retail’, which was utterly inspiring and customers leave the space having been immersed in Burberry. This cannot happen in an online environment.

Essentially, with trends, the sky is the limit – whatever gets people shopping is where the trends start to happen.

There are some innovative ideas that also demonstrate trends at the moment. For example, we hosted a JT One pop-up store at the Waterfront for a couple of months. This really got customers interested in the brand. Whereas the mother brand, Woolworths, was already entrenched due to the long-standing physical store, this small and nuanced project really worked to elevate the individual brand. It created right response to the right target market with a small budget. That’s good retail.

Waterstone Village is another well-designed space we are proud of. The design of this store was the result of manipulating the best of breed in the design across all aspects: lighting, equipment, environment, building materials and graphic design.

Waterstone is an example of how you take those cleverly crafted design elements and place them together to create a unified compelling solution. The end result at Waterstone speaks for itself. When you walk into the store, it reflects the values of the Woolworths brand, and yet still works as a retail machine.

In general, all retailers are looking for unusual and unexpected ways to engage their customers. The balance, however, is around creating the unexpected to surprise and delight customers, but not creating confusion or alienating customers.

That said, this type of design innovation is difficult – retailers are much more worldly, with immediate access to global trends. Customers, therefore, are constantly exposed to innovation, but still demand something new. As a designer, you have to be brave, making use of your skills and your experience to create something new. Retail is highly competitive – you need to be fresh.

What could global retailers learn from Woolworths?

There were some early South African retail developments that placed us ahead of the game. South African retailers face challenges unique to our country, such as production capacity, skill levels, and low economic growth. However, because of these challenges, we are forced to be more innovative, to remain globally competitive.

Tell us a bit about your background?

I am a qualified architect. I started out working as an architect and was led over time to more commercial spaces, particularly interior architecture projects. This then included hotels, spas and restaurants, which ultimately led me to retail and Woolworths.