DIYWEEK.net

Home retailer, Habitat has unveiled its new 6,500sq ft stand-alone flagship store today in Brighton, as part of the 1.3 acre Hannington Estate redevelopment.

The new opening, now Habitat’s third-largest store in the UK, marks the retailer’s first standalone city-centre store in a decade. Located on North Street and leading into Meeting House Lane, the new store, has been designed by Habitat’s own in-house Design Studio and carries more than 3,000 products from the Habitat collection across, furniture, lighting, textiles and home accessories.

“This is our first city-centre flagship store for 10 years so a really exciting development for Habitat and an example of how we’re evolving store formats and services to suit how customers are shopping for homewares,” said Habitat managing director Clare Askem.

Habitat has made significant investment in the digital side of the business, including a comprehensive upgrade of the habitat.co.uk website and, as a result, around 65% of Habitat sales originate online. However, the business still recognises the importance of having a physical estate of shops.

“As our digital sales go from strength to strength, we’re also seeing customers who want to shop in an immersive environment and touch and feel the Habitat products we create.  Our long heritage with Brighton means we have many fans who have been asking us to return with a city-centre store, so we felt that to launch our first inspirational flagship environment would really work here. Since we’ve opened our doors we’ve had a phenomenal reaction from customers delighted to see us back. We’re now looking forward to making this store a real design hub for Brighton by creating an inspiration atmosphere in which to shop with regular local collaborations and customer workshops to hero the creative spirit of the city.”

The new Brighton store joins three other flagship Habitat outlets: a 25,000sq ft store on Tottenham Court Road, an 18,000 sq ft outlet on Finchley Road and the 4,700sq ft branch that opened in London Westfield last summer, as well as a 2,000sq ft Habitat Mini store in Leeds. There are also 11 Mini Habitat stores in Sainsbury’s supermarkets – all occupying the same 2,000sq ft footprint and carrying  around 600 products.

Habitat has also been able to take advantage of the Sainsbury’s store network to expand its choice of delivery options to include click and collect from 2,300 locations.

Designed by the Habitat Design Studio, the new Brighton store, which employs 17 staff, is housed across ground and basement floors with a pared back, industrial look. For a closer look at the new store, get the next edition of DIY Week.