Relay reinvented: Lagardère Travel Retail unveils new store concept

GERMANY. Lagardère Travel Retail has opened a 90sq m Relay store at Frankfurt Airport which introduces a new design concept and a focus on enabling “one-stop shopping”.

The new Relay Reinvention store concept features an optimised product range, a new colour scheme and a ‘Digital Bar’ which gives customers direct access to the company’s online shop and allows them to order more than one million titles directly.

Lagardère said it considered the Frankfurt store to be an “innovative prototype” on which future Relay shops will be modelled.

Lagardère Travel Retail Germany, Austria and Slovenia CEO Thomas Wiesel noted that the store responded to customers’ demands to satisfy all their shopping needs in one store owing to time constraints.

“Our new Relay branch is the answer to how press and books have to be presented in a modern and successful way at airports or train stations to be able to meet the fast and sustainable changing client needs,” he said. “Especially in travel retail, customers have less and less time.

“With the new Relay Reinvention concept, Lagardère Travel Retail serves the customer request for one-stop shopping.”

Store presentation is still focused on the core assortment of press and books, according to Wiesel, but “indispensable extra offers such as snacks, beverages, tobacco products, souvenirs, travel items and technical accessories are accentuated by our new store design and its matching shop furniture”. Care has been taken to separate the different product groups, while signage has been designed to be clear and enable easy customer orientation, he added.

The store’s colour scheme is now dominated by a “light ivory and warm wooden surface”, Lagardère said. The standard red colour is still present but now serves as a signal and accent colour.

As well as enabling online ordering, the Digital Bar offers customers the opportunity to recharge their mobile phones, smartphones or tablets.