According to Steve Foster, Head of Retail for the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), 80 brands, from high street and global airport retailers, have shown interest in the 16 new outlets up for tender at Stansted Airport (STN) – which MAG bought from Heathrow Airport Holdings (HAH) last year.

 

The likes of Next, Fat Face, Dixons, JD and Rituals have opened for business at STN in the last few months, with the possibility of other UK fashion retailers to follow. When asked by TRBusiness at STN yesterday for the names of retailers who would be involved in the tender, Foster said: “The lion’s share of interest has come from high street retailers direct, but we have, of course, had interest from the big airport operators.

 

“It’s not a secret that MAG already has relationships with Nuance, WDFG and LSTR [TRBusiness expects these retailers will be involved in the tender process, especially as WDFG already operates stores at STN]. The deadline for the tenders will be 3 October, so we’ll be making appointments around December/January time and some in February.”

 

“We’ve been in contact with a whole host of luxury brands for shoes, jewellery, fashion, accessories, gifting, confectionery and lingerie and we’ve had all sorts of fabulous conversations with retailers.

 

London’s world famous toy store, Hamleys, has secured a prime position in Stansted Airport’s departure lounge.

 

FIRST-TIME AIRPORT RETAILERS

“We are not only talking to companies that have a high level of understanding of airport retail. We’re trying to encourage retailers/brands, which have never operated in airports before.”

 

When asked how difficult it might be to explain the airport concession model to high street retailers, Foster admitted that this is challenging: “I’ve been doing this job for eight years now and that’s probably one of the most difficult things to do; bringing new retailers into the airport is exciting, but it can be hard to do.

 

“As I’ve said, we’ve targeted a number of retailers that we really admire and we’ve spent a bit of time with them; dispelling some myths surrounding airport retail. One of the benefits for these companies is that they’ve got a guaranteed 10m passengers walking past their front door every year. You don’t get that in most shopping centres.”

 

The UK fashion retailer, Fat Face was tasked by MAG to think outside of the box for its airport store.

 

As reported, tenders for 13 brand new units and three pop-up locations under the £80m transformation of Stansted Airport’s international departure lounge were released to market in July earlier this year. MAG anticipates that although some units may open in the summer of 2015, the majority of concessions will start operating in the autumn of next year. The £80m project, including a massive overhaul of the security and check-in facilities, will have taken just two years to complete.

 

AIRSIDE TO GROW BY 70%

The check-in area and security areas have been transformed completely – with swathes of space for check-in minimised and replaced with small ‘cul-de-sacs’, in response to the changing face of travel, which means that the majority of passengers now check-in online.

 

The relocation of the security area and the cut back on check-in space has allowed London Stansted to grow its airside space by 70% and retail by 60%. In terms of retail strategy, STN has implemented the MAG principles of ‘zoning’; defining areas under the following headings: Orientation; desire; travel essentials; discover and relaxation.

 

Left: Steve Foster, Head of Retail for MAG.

 

But one of the biggest retail changes for STN is the opening of a mammoth new WDFG walkthrough store – which has replaced two smaller ones – nearly 25,000sq ft (or 3,000sq m) in size; the largest WDFG walkthrough store currently in operation.

 

The retail furniture is typical of the latest generation WDFG walkthrough stores – polished tiled floors with a distinctive glittering black walkway to encourage passengers to snake through the store taking in the multitude of premium beauty, liquor, watches and jewellery brands.

 

 

CHANEL, BURBERRY AND WORLD OF WHISKIES

The selection of brands is distinctly high-end – there’s a Chanel Espace area, a World of Whiskies as well as Jo Malone and Burberry beauty counters [STN firsts].

 

“The World of Whiskies store has seen an increase in its range as well as the retail space; which has doubled,” says Foster. “As you can see beauty and liquor account for the lion’s share of retail in here.”

 

WDFG have dedicated an enormous amount of space to the sunglasses category, carrying over 2,000 skus. The watches selection has been extended for the first time at STN as well and although there is still a value proposition, luxury brands such as Baume and Mercier, Tissot, and Gucci are now available for purchase.

 

WDFG’s bespoke World of Whiskies concept store has doubled its footprint.

 

“There is quite a high spend at the airport at the moment; that’s one thing that really amazed us when MAG bought STN last year,” said Foster. “Low cost airlines don’t necessarily reflect passenger profile. A lot our of passengers come from central London and we know that around Essex there’s a lot desire for big brands, so the labels are quite important.

 

“There is a desire for luxury products, but not perhaps to the same degree as T5 or T3 [London Heathrow]. We’re not flooded with Chinese passengers or Russian billionaires, but we know that there is a desire for affordable luxury brands. There is also a high demand for high street fashion such as Fat Face and Next. So we are trying to cater to everybody.”

 

As reported, UK High Street fashion retailer Next is set to open its third – and largest – airport store at London Stansted. The 252sq m tax-free store is also the first to bring Next’s children’s range to a UK airport, in addition to women’s and men’s fashion.

 

The myriad of high-end beauty brands at WDFG’s largest walkthrough store.

 

LONG-HAUL ROUTES FROM STN…?

WHSmith, Dixons Travel and Boots UK – which is opening one of the largest Boots stores in any UK airport – Rituals, The Body Shop, Glorious Britain and JD Sports have all begun trading at the airport in the last couple of months.

“STN has added routes to business hubs; people fly out to their second homes in Spain and France from here; there are some very affluent passengers here,” adds Foster.

 

Ryanair have launched links to Prague and increased frequency to Berlin, Barcelona and will start Glasgow and Edinburgh next month.

 

Both Ryanair and easyJet are actively focusing on adding primary destinations to their networks, but Foster is keen to point out that the airport hopes to gain long-haul routes in the future. This would involve the addition of partnerships with new airlines.

 

“What we are trying to do here is put a retail mix in place for the next 5-10 years so we’re conscious that the airline mix may change going forward. All these brands are very flexible and they’re brands that are very well-known in London, which is important for our customer base.

 

“What we don’t want to do is directly replicate the high street because there needs to be a point of difference.”