Belstaff plans retail roll-out and will test with pop-ups in key territories
Belstaff, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, has revealed a three-year strategic plan to open stores in different territories, using pop-ups as testing grounds to find the best locations.
The plan includes a second London store, as well as stores in Germany – Belstaff’s second biggest market outside of the UK – and in Spain, it’s third largest market.
A new Edinburgh store has already been signed for, and Belstaff is relocating its store at 76-80 King Street, Manchester, to a unit located in the busier retail part of King Street this summer.
Kerry Byrne, Commercial Director at Belstaff, told TheIndustry.fashion: "The relocated Manchester store will become our regional northern flagship, and will open at the end of August 2024. The store we are currently in on King Street is in quite a residential area, so we’ve taken on a listed building in the main pedestrianised shopping part of the same street.
"It’s really important for us to be in Manchester because it’s so close to Stoke - where the brand originates from. We’ve got a really loyal customer base in Manchester. Our recently refurbished Cheshire Oaks outlet store is also doing really well at the moment."
The locations for further stores are being driven by data based on where the British modern heritage brand is performing the strongest across its wholesale business.
"Because we have such a big wholesale business, we have pulled off the data of where our sales are strongest in different cities, including data from our e-commerce business, to determine where would be best to open new stores," added Byrne.
"We sat down with a property consultant with all the data and worked out a three-year roll-out plan for the cities where we are currently really performing. So, we’re effectively using our wholesale and e-commerce business to test and learn where we should be.
"Next year we have Edinburgh on the table – we’ve found the location, again it’s a listed building.
"In the second half of this year, we’re also going to do pop-ups in different parts of London to get a read on where our second permanent store in the capital should be. The sales data tells me where is best to test.
"Germany is also like a home territory for us as we have such an established business there. Last year we closed our Munich store because there was too much cannibalisation of our wholesale accounts there. We have a fantastic presence in Munich from wholesale shop-in-shops and we just didn’t need a standalone store there as well. However, we are now looking at Frankfurt and Dusseldorf – again it will be exploratory on the best city for us to go into.
'Spain is our third biggest territory. We have a very strongest presence through El Corte Inglés, so we are again going to try some test and learn pop-ups – particularly in Madrid. Approximately 50%-60% of sales on our dedicated Spanish website come from Madrid.
"In addition, Ireland is another territory where Belstaff has a really strong presence from a wholesale perspective, so we are potentially going to do a shop-in-shop partnership with Frasers Group-owned premium retailer Flannels in Dublin at some point next year."
Belstaff currently has four full-price stores, which includes a flagship at 203 Regent Street in London, as well as in Manchester, Glasgow and New York. It also operates seven outlet stores, including at Cheshire Oaks, Bicester Village, Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth and Ashford Designer Outlet in Kent, as well as two in Germany and one in Holland.
The Regent Street flagship store was reimagined and refitted in 2023 in collaboration with Scandinavian architecture and interior design studio, Specific Generic.
"I want all of the existing stores to be refitted as we are opening new stores, in line with the Regent Street design. As well as moving our Manchester store, which will have the new fit out, we are also refitting our Glasgow store this year," Byrne explained.
"Specific Generic is a fantastic Swedish company that did the roll out for On Running. We’ve been very specific on our different retail roll-out requirements with them, so we’ve got a concept for flagships, a concept for outlets and a shop-in-shop concept. A specific fit-out for everything, taking into account the size of stores and revenues.
"We’ve realised that the ideal size of store for us is around 1,200 to 1,400 square foot, so that’s what we’re looking for regarding any new locations. However, we do have extremes, as the new Manchester store is going to be 2,200 sq ft and Glasgow is 800 sq ft."
Belstaff has also just released its latest limited-edition ‘Challenger’ collection, created in collaboration with the INEOS Britannia sailing team – skippered by Sir Ben Ainslie – for the 37th America’s Cup.
