The everlasting competition between airports and train stations is an additional reminder of the growth of the travel retail market. And today we decided to remind you of one more attractive sales channel.
Travel retail used to be understood very simple: airports have always been an area for luxury retailers and train stations – for coffee shops and small souvenir stores.
But, with the continuous growth of passengers and popularization of travelling, travel retail is becoming a lucrative market. Multimillion-investments at international travel hubs worldwide present new opportunities for brands and retailers.
People have also changed their perception of airports and train stations. Now they use them not only to grab a cup of coffee or buy a perfume. A British retailer Network Rail has noticed that over the past few years, passengers are not the only one who spends money for shopping at stations and airports, those who live nearby also tend to spend money making purchases there.
Travel retail has become an essential part of sales strategies of many fashion brands: today you can find almost every fashion brand store at any airport. Global marketing managers of well-known brands aim to open more and more stores in every city with high travelers' traffic.
Travel retail is a growing business, which is very important and yet underestimated by many sellers. Airport stores are open twice the number of hours a normal store, that makes them a more productive space for potential profit. Moreover, you can also predict what kind of people will be coming through at any particular time.
Exploring new markets overseas allows fashion retailers to interact with international customers more deeply, to study their needs and expand the brand awareness.
Nowadays travelling becomes more and more popular: last year, there were registered 7 billion air journeys and this number is predicted to reach 9 billion in the next years. The unstable situation in the world and persistent terrorist attacks made the biggest world cities suffer, but Charles de Gaulle, JFK, Heathrow, etc. remain highly-used international hubs.
At the same time, attractiveness of the travel market has the specific drawbacks. A lot of fashion retailers still cannot find their place in the travel market: logistical difficulties, limited space and a huge number of checks for the staff make the travel fashion retail a complicated business.
High street and fast fashion retailers seek to a lower rent and bigger floor spaces, while airports can't offer them. It's quite a hard work to operate own airport store with its 365-day-a-year operation, longer work hours and a separate logistics team. So, you should weigh all pluses and minuses before making the decision of expanding your chain.
Millions of consumers and significant investments in adjusting the spaces make railway stations and airports a tempting prospect for fashion retailers. However, retailers need to consider how they can condense their products to work within the limited space. So, you should weigh all pluses and minuses before making the decision of expanding your chain.