Totalling 48,438 sq ft and spanning two floors, the Battersea store offers Zara’s largest commercial space in the UK (26,910 sq ft).
The space integrates Zara’s women's, men's, children's fashion and home collections, but for the first time, it also offers dedicated lingerie, sportswear ("Athleticz"), footwear and accessories sections.
Like in most Zara stores, the interior is predominantly white, clean and neutral with hints of colour and warmth from wooden furniture. However, due to its size there is much more breathing space for visual merchandising.
“This is the nicest Inditex store in the world”, Nutz, who has been Inditex's UK managing director since 2018, tells Drapers. “It is an iconic store, and the building is unique.”
He says Inditex is “learning from the British customer a lot” and that they are “really demanding in terms of technology”.
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Max Nutz, Inditex's UK managing director
The new store features the latest technological innovations from Zara's integrated online and physical store platform.
Some of the services integrated with the brand's app include a fitting room reservation service, the collection of online orders in two hours, and the ability to search online for items in the store and to check available stock.
The store also has other features, such as: a “Pay&Go” service for customers to purchase garments by scanning them with their mobile phones; an online shopping collection point with an automated storage area with a capacity for up to 900 orders; specific checkouts for returns; an automatic online returns point; a self-checkout area; and a customer cardboard recycling area.
The Zara Home space has a digital collection point for online orders, where customers can request delivery of their order via an iPad and receive sales assistance.
Self-checkout area
Zara Battersea has taken measures to reduce its environmental impact, including efficient heating and cooling systems, energy-saving LED lighting and the use of more environmentally-friendly materials.
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The store is connected to Inditex’s internal “Inergy” platform, which monitors the efficient consumption of the store's air conditioning and electricity installations to help define strategies to reduce energy demand.
When asked whether the concept will be rolled out to other stores and/or new openings, Nutz says: “We are always trying to be leading in the market. We’ll continue to have interesting stores in different cities in the UK.”
The new store brings Zara’s UK store portfolio to 60.
Inditex, which also comprises Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius and Oysho, currently has around 104 stores in the UK.
