As Emma - The Sleep Company opens its first bricks-and-mortar store in the UK, Furniture News asks its director of European retail, Benoît Linossier, to explain how the world’s largest D2C sleep brand aims to change the way people shop for sleep …
On 31st May, Emma opened its first standalone UK store, in the nation’s largest shopping centre, Westfield White City. The brand, which started life as an online pureplay in 2015 and now operates in 30 countries, has alreadly established a firm foothold in the UK, selling online as well as through Furniture Village, John Lewis, and other partner retailers – but the store opening marks the start of a bold new chapter, Benoît explains.
“We’re committed to introducing more of the UK to the transformational power of great sleep, and London will kick off our on-the-ground approach to doing just that,” he says. “Whilst Emma’s heritage is digital, we’re passionate about ensuring great sleep is accessible to all, and our stores mark Emma’s commitment to that.”
The 3035 sqft space hosts the store-exclusive Select Collection, alongside Emma’s award-winning core range, all supported by a team of trained experts. “Our Westfield White City store will offer a personalised experience with trained advisors, so that everyone can make the right choice when it comes to awakening their best,” says Benoit.
More UK store openings are planned this year, in line with fulsome portfolio growth across Europe (six new Emma stores opened in May alone). Benoît tells us more …
What do you feel about the new Westfield White City store? Did everything go to plan?
We are very excited to join one of the UK’s most iconic shopping centres. Great transport links and the attraction of fellow home brands makes us very confident in the success of our store.
Given that Emma is very new to this side of the business, we are still on a learning curve. Each of our physical store openings comes as a result of complex cross-team collaboration, and we are very thankful for the time that so many of our teams dedicated to the Westfield White City project. Despite inevitably having had a few minor hiccups along the way, we are ready to make this store a success.
What would you say defines Emma’s store format template?
Our stores are designed to help us get closer to our customers and give them the possibility to test our award-winning products. The aim for our European stores is to have retail spaces of approximately 1500 sqft – in fact, our location in London is a little larger than that.
The Emma store design creates an inviting environment with an emphasis on convenience to ensure that our customers have a great physical experience throughout. An example of this is that we do not have any formal cash registers or transaction counters at our stores – the transaction happens wherever the customer feels most comfortable, via tablets and portable transaction terminals.
In what other ways do the physical and digital shopping experiences marry up?
We essentially divide our customer base into three segments: the online shopper; the offline shopper; and the shopper that searches for options on one channel (for example, online) to convert in another (for example, in-store). With the opening of our own stores, we have introduced a new channel for the customer to interact with and experience our products.
For some customers, this will help them identify the best product for them. For others, the store offers the last bit of assurance that the online product they researched is really the best product for them. Our stores are ultimately a way for Emma to be in touch with our customers, helping them to ‘awaken their best’.
How might the UK stores differ from those in Europe – or is Emma sticking to a firm template?
Our store experience has been developed to the smallest detail. Whilst every country Emma operates in has its own localised product portfolio, the goal is for all our European stores to look and feel homogenous and inviting. This is also the case for our UK store.
What does your typical customer look like, and which demographics are you hoping to reach by going into bricks and mortar?
We started primarily as an ecommerce company – hence it is safe to say that our core customer base is slightly younger, comfortable with online buying, and looking for convenience. By introducing our bricks-and-mortar stores, we believe we’ll be able to better address our offline shopper customer base, as well as reach additional ones, who prefer more personalised advice, and a physical in-store experience.
Read the rest of our interview to discover what the roadmap for Emma's UK store roll-out looks like – and what this strategy means for existing stockists – in July's issue.
