Jos de Vries The Retail Company: September 2009

Colruyt opens first DreamLand-store in France

Colruyt opened the 12th of September its first DreamLand store in France. The new store is located in Leers, which is near the Belgian border, close to Roubaix.
The DreamLand store in France is store number 30 of this chain. DreamLand is a daughter of the Colruyt Group. In 1978 this company started as toys store, the DreamLand formula nowadays is a leisure shop concept for the younger and older consumer.

A store concept like DreamLand is a totally new concept for France. In France there are toys stores and hypermarkets, but almost nothing in between. DreamLand has already plans to opens its second store in France, in Douai.

Colruyt is already active in France for several years, with supermarkets and as cash&carry. The chain is known for its low pricing, flat organisation structure and a down to earth mentality, all ingredients for the success of the Colruyt formula.

Jos de Vries The Retail Company developed the current store concept together with DreamLand. The information described below concerns the first store and further roll-out of this store concept. The pictures are from the first renovated store with the new store concept in Belgium.

Together with Dreamland points that needed to be improved had been described, a different routing had to be optimalized with strong focus points and clear entrances.
The check-out zone has been separated from the entrance zone, the client can easily enter the store, also at busy days.

At the DreamBaby-shop the assortiment was beter grouped to easen the search of the consumers. Next to the improvement of the routing and presentation, it was also important to make the new DreamLand identity more recognizable at the facade and inside the store. Together with the client we checked every part of the store. Our client was very realistic about the status and the improvements that needed to take place, a concrete and practical way of working of DreamLand.

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Best practises in green retailing: Tesco supermarkets Carbon Foot Print

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Block electrostore new store concept: optimalization of lay-out,routing and instore-graphics

Block Electrostore is one of the biggest chains of specialized electrostores in The Netherlands and has stores in the whole Randstad. Block is a family owned- company, founded in 1955. The company has 28 stores in 2009 and is managed by the five sons of the founder. Back in 1990 the company developed a store concept focusing on the floor and the ceiling with a light plan. The store concept was succesfull for a longer period, but the company was in need of a new store concept. The store in Hilversum needed an optimalization of the lay-out, routing and instore-graphics. Jos de Vries The Retail Company was asked to develop that.

Entering the new store in Hilversum you can directly see the brand wall, placed above the shelve presentations. The brand wall is a white strip with grey texts and lighted with coloured lights. The clients are better able to find their preferred department, the white goods department is indicated with blue light (refrigerators, washing machines, dryers) and using orange colour the client can see the brown goods department (tv´s, audio and household equipment).

To increase the traceability of the products at the (low) gondolas in the store for some products, sub-groups, indications have been made. This accounts for example for navigation articles, car radios and mobile dvd players. These products are presented next to each other.

To seduce the clients to visit the whole store there are installed “screen bulletins”, these “screen bulletins” (foreseen of LED lighting) shows texts and brand names. By placing these screen bulletins there is more movement and dynamics in the store.

Working together with Jos de Vries The Retail Company resulted into the contact with Retail Bouw Management. A retail design agency and a retail building management company under one roof made the development of the new concept clarifying.

maurice@josdevries.eu // www.josdevries.eu

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