Habitat has launched its 35th and largest new Mini Habitat store. The 5600 sqft concept store in Chichester is the largest to be opened by the brand, which now employs nearly 400 staff across the UK, since it started rolling out its Mini Habitat project in Homebase stores in 2012.
The new space will showcase a new retail concept developed by Habitat creative director, Polly Dickens, creative manager, Graham Copeland and in-house designer Matthew Long.
With over 1300 products from the Habitat collection including furniture, upholstery, homewares, textile and lighting, the store design includes bespoke fixturing designed to enhance the sense of space and light, and uses digital technology to create an immersive store environment for customers by incorporating interactive touch screens and video walls. New design features also include bold checkerboard flooring, a statement chair wall featuring best selling designs, a large gallery space as well as a bold new cash desk design.
“The Mini Habitat project has allowed us to extend our physical presence across the whole of the UK making us more accessible than ever with 38 different store locations,” comments Clare Askem, MD of Habitat. “These stores have supported strong sales growth for us and this year we’re looking to continue this expansion meaning that customers are able to interact with Habitat products and staff more conveniently in locations stretching from Cornwall up to Scotland.
“As our digital business continues to grow we are seeing that there is still a demand from consumers for physical showrooms that allow interaction with product before purchase and allow shoppers to immerse themselves in a Habitat environment. Chichester is a particularly exciting project as it offers us an opportunity to trial a new visual concept for these stores on a much larger scale and means that we can look to incorporate successful new elements from this design into our other Mini and flagship stores in the future.”
Mini Habitat Chichester is now open at Homebase, Discovery Park.
