SCANDINAVIA. Nordic travel retail distributor Retail & Food Services took a novel approach to countering the impact of COVID-19-related lockdown: it built a pop-up shop in a downtown mall that aimed to mirror the airport shopping experience.
The store, in the Lund Nova mall in Lund, Sweden, targeted local consumers with a tax paid offer from its airport range, allowing the company to sell stock while its regular retailer customers were closed.
The travel retail and food distribution company, which is headquartered in Malmö, opened the store on 23 April and closed it on 17 June, after selling out of stock. The offer included confectionery (a staple of Nordic travel retail), beauty, fashion, toys and gifts, though no liquor or tobacco.
The store opening was a response to the 70-80% fall in sales when travel restrictions began, said the company. Named Lund Airport Shop, it centred around the idea of buying while on ‘staycation’. Retail & Food Services noted that “people might not be able to travel due to the COVID-19 outbreak,” but they could “still get the airport experience and purchase the travel retail classics they always buy when travelling”.
CEO Per Ola Jönnerheim said: “We understood very early on that our business would be hit hard by the pandemic. We realised the value of having an agile organisation, being able to quickly create a plan for how to manage this crisis to stay afloat and be ready for a time after the crisis.
“The store has been a sort of lifebuoy for us, helping us stay up and running when we didn’t have any orders coming in. With many countries now opening up their borders again we can get back to distributing travel retail products to airports and ferries. We have taken all necessary actions to bridge these difficult times and are now looking ahead, ready to take on existing and new business.”
A spokesperson also told The Moodie Davitt Report: “All taxes and VAT were paid according to Swedish regulations. We opened the store at a local shopping mall in Sweden, but it looked very much like a tax free shop you can find on airports or ferries.”
Retail & Food Services distributes food and travel retail products to 92 stores and 160 restaurants in Scandinavia, including many ferry and airport retailers. The company, a subsidiary of Stena Line, has annual sales of SEK1 billion (US$107 million).
