Magrabi

Magrabi Optical, one of the world’s top international retailers for end-to-end eyecare products and services, decided to embark on a complete brand makeover with a new look and feel for its existing 200+ store network and their ongoing expansion programme.

The ‘future stores’ programme focused on a more digital customer experience, with technology used to raise the experience and offer a personalised service, including facial recognition which allowed customers to virtually experiment with the eyewear range.

The new store concept, aside of its innovative design, had to be on budget, provide the right level of flexibility, durability and functionality to enable it to be viable commercially and operationally for large scale roll out across nine regions in the Middle East.

To deliver against both design and the business driver requirements, VIM Group proposed a delivery programme which included building a prototype store behind closed doors.

The benefits for Magrabi were clear, and so a 300sqm prototype store was commissioned in a warehouse in the UK. VIM incorporated staged sign off periods such as customer journey and zone checks and building mock up versions of the furniture to the same dimensions and shape as the end product – enabling the client and design team to get a real sense of how the design worked within the space.

The objective was to enable the new store concept to be sourced, produced and subsequently shipped, to any location around the world – a high level ‘shop in a box’ concept, providing a consistent brand, finish, quality and lifecycle to all stores.

Through the value engineering process and close cooperation with both client and design team, the concept store met both design and business KPIs. The final stage of construction was to build and install the actual furniture to be used and add the technological hardware, completing the full, immersive customer experience.

In addition to this, VIM advised on the application of the new visual identity to 2D in-store items, and was lead consultant in developing the new workwear for the Magrabi store colleagues.