London Design Festival - Multiplex, Tom Dixon's Department Store

We went to Multiplex on Saturday, Tom Dixon's temporary department-store-of-the-future, part of the London Design Festival.

It was in a cavernous space, The Old Selfridges' Hotel, lighting was low and the walls were lined with silver foil. The departments comprised homeware (of course), fashion, accessories, beauty, food and drink. The atmosphere was calming and yet engaging, it really seemed to encourage conversation with the brands that were represented.

Some of the brands and some of the merchandising that caught my eye were:

Haeckels - You couldn't fail but notice their 'polytunnel' spa with planted porch, and, in fact, it encapsulated several important influences on their brand: a love of the coastal botanicals found near Margate and the science used to compound these botanicals into natural fragrances and skincare.
The cosmetics were displayed simply, each given sufficient space to stand out. Perfumes stood on top of wooden boxes marked with the GPS co-ordinates of the location where they were inspired, and the date and meteorological conditions when they were inspired.
As a whole area, it worked wonderfully!

Obataimu - This fabric-focused, concept-led, slow-fashion brand had an ingenious display in a corner of the department store. The two walls had not been used to display clothes, instead a video from their factory was projected onto the long wall, with some beautiful stills affixed to the left, and some infographics were positioned on the smaller wall to the right. The clothes were hung on two levels, parallel to the walls and extending almost their length, forming an enclosed, intimate space within the department store. 
Dresses from the Wabi Sabi collection (which 'indulg[es] individuality, impulse, statement and process') and other standout pieces, were in placed in hotspots to encourage customers to interact - reach up, touch the fabric and so on. The Shibui collection, inspired by witnessing people snatching shut-eye on the Tokyo tube and developed with sleep textile innovators, was mainly displayed on the right.
Finally, in the middle of the space, there was a selection of interesting books, to engage and give a homely feel.
Obataimu also have an excellent website.

Gelato Meccanico - How merchandising would be applied to a 'café-setting' isn't something I have really considered before, I can't claim very much knowledge of it all all, but I adored the presentation of Gelato Meccanico's ice creams! As we entered Multiplex, we were given a miniature cone that we could take to the food department to receive a free ice cream sample. As we queued, we admired two beautiful manual gelato churns. In cream enamel, natural wood and copper, these provided an insight into the performance and authenticity that seem important parts of this brand. A series of infographics explained the science behind the churns. Five or six flavours, some classic, some more inventive, were served from lovely chrome chillers.
And after that, my little scoop of honey and rosemary was absolutely delicious!

Tom Dixon's products really lend themselves to merchandising. An island of candles, a tower of gifts, in burnished copper and brass, naturally draw shoppers across for a closer look.
I repeatedly found myself pulled towards striking light fittings as well - Dixon's, and those of a New Zealand design house, Resident - and guided from department to department by light.

Multiplex is on until 18th October. If you can look in, it's really worthwhile!

First collage (clockwise from top) Tom Dixon Tank Jug £95, Brew Stove Top £125, Scent Diffuser Earth £85, Cog Candelabra £200, Large Scented Candle London £80, Plum Cocktail Shaker £95
Second collage (clockwise from top) Haeckels Eau de Parfum GPS 26'3"E £160, Exfoliating Seaweed Block £18, Seaweed/Geranium Hand Balm £18, Seaweed/Sea Lavender Lip Balm £15, Seaweed/Carrot Seed Facial Serum £65, Candle GPS 26'3"E £50

Berlin II - Web Merchandising Case Studies and Examples

Plip, the Umbrella Man by David Sire and Thomas Baas 14.90€ (from Gestalten), Premiata Sneaker 142.10€ (from 203€), Umasan Y-Shirt 179€, Lumi Venla Pouch €89

I was back in Berlin last week (see my first post about Berlin here) and visited Bikini - a 'concept mall' in a striking '50's building overlooking the city's zoo.

I loved it - I could have marvelled at the architecture and browsed the fashion and homeware brands for hours! And in adjoining buildings, I could have taken in a film at the Zoo Palast cinema, recharged at the 25Hours Hotel or even rented an office!

Looking at their website, as a virtual tourist, I found a clear list of shops and an informative page devoted to each. Some photographs might have made me even more inclined to visit. A clear floorplan was helpful though.
On the attractive homepage, a couple of newer shops and restaurants were highlighted.

The 'What is Bikini Berlin?' section gave an impressive level of detail on the history of the Bikini complex. (Out of interest, Bikini comes from a nickname given to the mall building in the 1950's - its two tier architecture reminded locals of swimwear!) There was also a well-hidden link to an online shop selling mall merchandise.
This page was accessible through two top bar links.

An Events and a Blog section provided reasons to keep returning both to mall and website. Services gave you all the information you needed about location, opening hours, restaurants and possible tours.

The collage above shows some of the items that grabbed me.

Have a lovely weekend!

Fabrics - Web Merchandising Case Studies and Examples

Scion Kamili, Shoji and Meiko fabrics, Medwinds EV dress £99 (from £150), Kusmi Genmaicha and Sencha Fukuyu tea £15.40 each, Muji Hakuji Porcelain Teapot and Cup £9.95 and £2.95

Like everyone, I suppose, I sometimes feel my job is pretty tricky.
To put things in perspective, I decided to have a look at some sites selling products that seemed inherently particularly hard to merchandise. I've always thought that fabric would be difficult to work with - colour and pattern pulling you in different directions (would colour be my main concern if I were buying fabric for some new curtains? or would it be pattern? it's very difficult to say), the risk of it becoming monotonous if you use only detail-shot thumbnails in your galleries, the high chance of not properly showing texture, or smaller, more delicate patterns, of you don't use close-ups...

I found several sites merchandising fabrics really well however, among them Scion.

If, from the arrestingly, engagingly designed homepage (as you scroll, the page pans down for you in a really enticing way), you navigate to the fabric department, you're met with an overview and room-setting image links to sixteen collections. The collections are listed alphabetically and clicking opens up a description of the inspiration and intention, and a thumbnail of each pattern. The arrangement of these thumbnails is alphabetical and the colours seem to have been chosen to be aesthetically pleasing - you have two earthy, natural dye tones next to one another, two faded grey shades together, etc.

The collection pages start with the description again and more beautifully-styled room-setting shots, each with bubbles you can click to reveal the names of the fabrics. Wallpapers in the same collection are also quite prominently linked.

After this you see the pattern thumbnails as above. Or you can click on 'colourways' to reveal the patterns, interestingly not arranged alphabetically this time, in every available colour. Here again, I think attention had been paid to the flow of the colours, particularly where one pattern ran into the next - an inky block print was next to a repeating, blue and red patch design, etc.
Alternatively, you could click on a thumbnail to view product details, an image in a room setting, alternative colourways and some complementary products.

From the fabric department page, you had a second option of viewing thumbnails of all fabrics (all patterns in all colours) at once. Here you could sort alphabetically, by recency, or by colour. The default ordering was definitely not alphabetical and I felt there might have been less deference to aesthetic-effect (more of an emphasis on best-sellers perhaps). Clicking a thumbnail revealed the same product details as before.

Overcoming the difficulties of merchandising fabrics, this was a really nice website, displaying really beautiful materials. I've incorporated my favourites from the Wabi Sabi collection into the collage above.

Have a great weekend!

Lisbon - Web Merchandising Case Studies and Examples

Sennes Esperer por Coat €255, Madara Soap and Facial Masks at Organii, Encosta-te a Mim Cushions, Caulino Wall Balloon €130

I have been meaning to mention a couple of Portuguese brands. We were lucky enough to spend a week in Lisbon recently, you see. I think they're worth taking a look at online, and it would definitely be a shame to miss them if you're ever in the area.

First of all, Embaixada and Entre Tanto in Principe Real. Both are old palaces (Entre Tanto dates from the 17th century, while Embaixada is 19th-century, neo-Arabian fantasy!) in which each airy room is occupied by an exciting small brand.
Some of the ones to look out for are -
Urze - selling branded wool (including burel) and linen items from Manteigas, in the Serra d Estrela mountains. One brand, Sennes, has a minimal, but highly inspiring site, promoting and selling their outerwear and bags.
Organii - which sells organic cosmetics and baby products, from brands including Latvian Madara, Australian Nvey Eco and Irish Voya. They have a friendly, commercial site. 
Mimolab - a children's event organiser, also selling some toys and textiles. Browsing their true-to-brand website is lovely experience.
Antiflop - an artful scarf and shirt shop.
Encosta-te a Mim - producing cushions in the loveliest of colours.

Both Embaixada and Entre Tanto have clear websites, with comprehensive lists of their brands, and glossy images.


Second, Baixa-based Caulino. This is a studio creating and displaying striking, sometimes challenging, ceramics, as well as offering workshops and holidays to the neophyte and the more experienced. Again, their site is clean, with rich images, and a simple, well-merchandised shop.


Lastly Cork & Co, in Bairro Alto, with its cork collection ranging from handbags and jewellery, to design pieces like lighting, tableware and furniture, and Vista Alegre, a historic, yet modern, Portuguese luxury brand.


Lisbon is a beautiful, pastel-painted, tile-covered city. The food (pregos, bacalhau and chickpea salads, chourico, natas...), the wine (the Duoro, Alentejo, Vinho Verdo, the Port) is all so flavoursome! It's near the sea, near the mountains, and its slightly slower, mediterranean pace allows you to really unwind. I'd recommend it to absolutely everyone!

Malmo - Web Merchandising Case Studies and Examples

Liebling Clogs 549Kr and Bric-a-Brac Cardigan 1099kr; Bolia Casoli chair from €199 and Quadro shelf from €399; Lindex Sunglasses £6.99 and Short Sleeve Dress £34.99; Bolia Angie pillow €49, Twiiitter table lamp €179 andGrandpa clock €65

A couple of weeks after going to Berlin, we went to Malmö (not been abroad in yonks and then we end up taking two trips in a month - strange, huh?)

I really liked Malmö - different to, but equally enjoyable as Copenhagen (I visited and wrote a post about the Danish capital a year or so ago).

Though I wanted to do a little shopping, I failed to find any interesting stores until closing time on Saturday. So I have since done some virtual retail tourism and looked up the websites of the shops I missed. I found some interesting and really attractive pages:

I spotted several outlets of a large retailer called Lindex. When I searched for them online, I found that they had opened their first British store last week.

At the top of their homepage was a large carousel displaying a message about the new store, a link to a charitable collection (there was more about this immediately below) and finally a link to the children's department. The first and second images were the same, which seemed maybe a little bit of a waste.
Simple carousels were used to good effect midway down and towards the bottom of the homepage too. In general, the CTAs were clear, directing you to product galleries, offering you the option of signing up to newsletters, etc. Clickable product names and prices and a + symbol allowed you to view products in a small pop-up.

Messages about delivery times, returns, and an offer for free delivery when you bought from a particular collection appeared in several places on the homepage. Delving deeper into the site however, there was some confusion over whether standard orders would be despatched or delivered within 4-6 days. We were told that the longer waiting times were due to their warehouse being located in Sweden, which was nice and transparent. A free click and collect service was offered, though not communicated on the homepage. The checkout was streamlined and it was possible to proceed to purchase without creating an account.

Their top navigation bar linked to three product categories, a page of new products, a lookbook (shoppable, glossy images of recent collections), and a magazine (which contained substantial fashion content and was also shoppable).

From the category pages, you could reach various subcategories, new products, future products, sustainable products and best sellers. Once you reached the products, they were logically grouped and you were able to filter by colour, size, style and brand, as well as sort by price. This area of the site was very strong.

One small thing I would say is that their Google snippet details how customers have 30 days' right to withdraw from purchase. It would be good if eventually it was more descriptive of the substance of the site.

I have seen a couple of Bolia's in Northern Europe and always been intrigued by their statement shop design (vertical gardens, altar-like cash-desks...) Their website proved to be as interesting as their stores.

If Lindex reused one image for the first and second position of the carousel at the top of their homepage, Bolia went one step further. The two images on their carousel contained no furniture - both were striking, black and white photographs of people, one linking to a new collection, the other explaining delivery.

The website was built around coloured rectangles. The colours made the pages vibrant and showed white furniture to its advantage. In product galleries, the rectangle-design meant that certain articles could be four-times the size of others, and that  messages could be inserted, without looking out of place.

The most prominent categories were sofas, living room, home office, dining, storage and accessories. Nice, context images were used for categories and sub-categories, whereas product pictures were simpler. In product galleries, you were able to refine by price and design.

Product pages contained information about the designer, some inspiration on how the product might look at home and some additional products, said to be recommended by the designer.

A pop-up allowed you to find out delivery times. The cost of delivery however was visible only at checkout.

There was a lot of rich content - an inspiration page (with lookbooks, descriptions of the collections...), a page about their designers, a page with information and beautiful photos/videos of their stores, an Instagram feed, a match-making page (!)

All this made for a really aspirational site, but one that could perhaps do with a 
tiny bit more polish.

We arrived at Liebling (meaning favourite, or darling, in German, I think) at 5.35 on Saturday, so my experience of the physical store was limited to pressing my nose disappointedly against the window as they cashed up. All the same, I got a strong, positive impression of colourful, well-constructed products and half-modern half-vintage decor, everything with its own particular beauty. The website really captured this feeling and for the site of a boutique, it was well-designed and well-maintained.

The presentation of categories and subcategories at the top of the homepage was elegant, though it didn't follow the most logical order perhaps - they sold a lot of children's products for example but that category didn't have a terribly prominent position.  There were however useful links to news, a product listing sorted by brand, an edited selection of favourite pieces and Liebling's own production. Product galleries were organised and the quality of the imagery was fairly high.

Several products appeared in multiple galleries - more whimsical homeware under children as well as home for example - increasing their exposure.

On the product pages, some good further products were suggested under the item you were looking at - functionally and stylistically similar.

A delivery offer was highlighted (free within Sweden over 1000Kr spend) but I don't believe you could see the actual delivery price except on the ts and cs page.

Finally, there was a wordpress blog of cute and useful posts, which linked to particular products and powerfully conveyed the spirit of the store.

Hope you've had a less tiring start to the week than I have!

New Resolutions 2

Sweaty Betty - Om Yoga Vest £45, Virasana Yoga Bra £38, Dynamic Yoga Leggings £65; Marks and Spencer - Reflective Jacket £55, Gym Slim Sports Bra £28, Graphic Print Leggings £25; Ballet Beautiful Wrap Top £ 145, Live the Process Sports Bra £60 and Paneled Printed Leggings £105 all at Net-A-Porter

Just after Christmas, I discussed my resolutions for the next year at work. New beginnings seem to be top of everyone's mind right now. All the retailers are talking about detox diets and exercise regimes, kicking bad habits and picking up new skills, purging and enriching...

I've been revisiting all my pages and finding lots to improve upon. What felt right in the autumn just doesn't now (circumstances change of course, and the changes you make, bring about the need for more changes). New opportunities have opened up. And, while some pages have less potential at the moment, they can still be tidied up and put to bed for a while.
Lots to be getting on with!


I wanted to see if I could spot any other merchandising that was starting a-fresh this spring -

First, a book-seller: I compared their current homepage to their homepage in early December. Certain things remained the same, certain things had changed.
They led with the same four categories - Children's, Fiction, Crime, and Food and Drink - and the same images represented these categories. After this however, 4 'New & Bestselling' volumes replaced 8 'Christmas & Best-sellers'.
Both pages ended with 4 'Favourite' books and 8 Category links (to Gifts and some non-book departments), but since December, 3 Books of the Month have been inserted before the 'Favorites'.

At the moment, several of the featured books have a healthy-eating focus. There's also a noticeable presence of film-related books - because it's Awards Season, no doubt. This was not the case before Christmas.

Currently, a carousel sends you to a page dedicated to New Year's New Starts - with some recent releases at the top and then links to healthy eating, money and DIY, travel guides, language tutorials, even juicing and non-alcoholic beverage books!
The first product on the Food & Drink page is about 'The Art of Eating Well'; on the Home & Gardening page it's 'The Life-changing Magic of Tidying'!

Second, a supermarket: when I looked at their site at the start of December side-by-side with their site now, I saw similar categories but different images - spring flowers instead of wreaths and red bouquets, glasses of rose instead of flutes of champagne. Healthy-eating tips, ways to save money on food and nutritious recipes replaced links to Christmas products, decoration inspiration, gift guides and festive recipes.The carousel contained deals, deals on healthier ready-meals and even a month weight-loss regime.
Products you could consider 'healthy' - ingredients, snacks and meals - are pretty prominent throughout the site. Links to Muesli & Granola and Couscous have the same level of focus as Flour and Oils & Vinegar. Subcategories such as Specialist & Health Food appear much higher up drop-downs than I would have expected.

I also considered some sports brands - which presented new collections, particularly winter running ranges, along with ways to get fit and platforms for sharing exercise-experiences.

Department stores featured links to and content on fitness; while health and beauty stores had offers and rewards on health products.


In the collage above, you can see what I would pick, if I could splurge on some new kit to support my get-fit resolution!

Comparative Competitive Shopping 3

Staying with my parents, my choice of retailers for a last post comparing online to in-store shopping experience was a little limited. I planned to do homeware, but there's not much available in the city centre - no Habitat or Heals or Conran store.
So I went for a brand that started out selling cushions, ironing board covers, etc. though it has diversified since. It's known for its prints and is apparently on the point of being sold.

The windows displayed bags, of different prints and styles, in distressed wooden crates. Inside the store, more crates presented homeware - cooking/baking utensils, tea caddies, biscuits and so on. The front left of the store was given over to further homeware, the right was bags and the middle was smaller leather/canvas goods - purses, passport covers, sunglasses cases...
A wall behind a central till unit separated the front from the middle of the shop which was selling children's-ware and stationery, nightware and washbags, and womenswear. Then, there was another wall, behind which were cushions, blankets, bolts of fabric, sewing boxes and wallpaper.
The decor - not what I went in to look at - was quite interesting. If you looked up above the products, there were local postcards, tea towels and samplers; in the kids' section, there were old abaci and alphabet charts. It showed an impressive attention to detail and evinced the traditional but idiosyncratic spirit of the brand. I was impressed.

Above the fold on the website homepage, there was one large image of several bags. As in the store windows, they were a mix of floral, spot and bird prints. They were hanging from some distressed wooden pegs, reminiscent of school pegs, and in the foreground was a Penguin edition of Sterne's A Sentimental Journey. Again, there was something classic but quirky about the book; it might also have been meant to instil wanderlust and a desire for some new luggage.
The images directly under the fold linked to fashion, bags and accessories (purses, etc.); these categories were also the first three on the top navigation bar. So the site seemed to have less of a focus on homeware, and more of a focus on fashion, than the store. All in all though, I would say that merchandise (and brand) was very much aligned in store and online.

So I think this will be the last of my comparative posts. I'm actually about to leave London and start a new job - it'll be a slightly different role, a different industry and a different end of the market.
Therefore, the focus of the blog will be changing slightly - should be interesting though!

Comparative Competitive Shopping 2

Lyon 4 Piece Sofa Set £225, Ray-Ban Matte Blue New Wayfarers £125, Navy Canvas Slip-On £20, Tipped Polo Shirt £16, Chino Shorts £16, Miami Chair £65, Delicate Bracelet Four Pack £8.50, Blue Stripy Sandals £30, Navy Playsuit £22, Fish Stacking Mugs Set of 4 £12, Teal Bubble Wine Glasses set of 4 £16  

So my next exercise in comparing the website and stores of brands took me to a large high-street retailer, one that's apparently doing pretty well at the moment.

The first thing I would say is that the shopping experience in the stores I visited was very different to the experience of shopping their site. I got the impression the site aims to replicate, or at least evoke, their iconic catalogue. So, to some extent, expecting it to resemble a store might not be valid.

Anyway, I visited the shops/website last Friday/Saturday. The homepage was promoting summery products, with a secondary focus on Fathers' Day gifts. There was a great image of a man on a yacht, wearing an ochre-coloured, geometric-print shirt.
When you followed the Fathers' Day link, a page of packshots represented the range of polo shirts, accessories (e.g. leather bags, watches), loungewear (e.g. slippers) grooming (fragrance) and gifts (a brushed-metal hip flash, etc.)
When you followed the link for womenswear for example, you came to a page which presented subcategories, such as casual, tailored and occasion. If you clicked casual, you reached a page of stories - a light, patterned, denimy collection, festival fashion, casual basics, beachwear... Selecting one of these took you to a series of editorial images, so you felt almost as if you were shopping from a magazine or catalogue. It was really enjoyable.

The first store I visited was quite a small one in the city of London. One window displayed the festival fashion story (pink poncho, etc.) and some denim. There was a menswear window too - summery items with a nautical slant, as on their homepage.
In the store, I spotted a chinzy-print prominent in tailoring online and some embroidered items from a middle east story - really nice but not a focus on the web. Some of the rails were marked with Fathers' Day signs, but you didn't have that much of selection of accessories / gifts.
Imagery was present, but it got a little lost among all the merchandise and it wasn't always imagery I'd noticed on the website. Lifestyle seemed to be conveyed and products seemed to be contextualised a lot less.

I also visited a bigger, flagship store. Here, it felt as if you could really take your time and enjoy your shop. There were some pretty stylish mannequins and striking images. I saw a little of the light denimy story that made up the first of the casualwear pages online. There was also a good choice of Fathers' Day fragrances and gifts by the men's tills.

Interestingly, nowhere I went had much of a homewear section - when this is one of the first options on their homepage. 

So online and in-store models differ, obviously, but overall I'd say merchandise and marketing messages were consistent.

The products above caught my eye when I was doing my research. I'm trying to spend as much time outside as possible at the moment (seize the sunshine while you have the opportunity!) These would set you up nicely for lazy day in the garden.

Comparative Competitive Shopping

Antonia's Flowers Floret Eau de Parfum £137, Diptyque Mousse Candle £40, Laure Mercier Creme de Pistache Honey Bath £32, Eve Lom Cleanser from£ 40, Malin + Goetz Sage Styling Cream £16, Kiehl's Creme de Corps from £16, Anthony Logistics Facial Moisturiser SPF 15 £32, Tom Ford for Men Eau de Toilette £48

I was discussing store visits and competitive shops with my manager recently. I do a bit both, but what I probably do most is online retail research. I thought it would be interesting to compare the online store to a bricks and mortar store of a couple of brands, to see how consistently they are merchandised.

First of all, I decided to look at a high-end beauty boutique - you might be able to guess which. At the moment, they have a print-based window scheme, six or seven moisturisers, exfoliators, supplements, etc. artfully arranged on a yellow background. When you enter the store, you see these products and more displayed on an island unit. Perspex blocks reveal that they make up the steps of particular beauty routine. There's some classic product by their bestselling brands, some more niche product, some newness; it's an interesting campaign and it certainly seemed to appeal to customers.

Their homepage featured the same image as the window. Beneath, pack-shots of particular products represented the steps of the beauty regime. When you clicked through, the selection of products was almost exactly the same as in store.

In store, the mens section was mainly Anthony Logistics, Kiehl's and a Malin + Goetz range that lead into the female skincare. The men's part of the website promoted a selection of essential men' products - the above brands were all well represented and their products were prominently positioned.

The in-store home selection was almost entirely Diptyque - candles, diffusers... Online, the 'home page' (not homepage, let us be clear!) was subcategory based, packshots linking to candles, sprays and diffusers, laundry products, hand wash. Diptyque was featured, but the candle subcategory packshot was own-brand. This was interesting as the own-brand candles were in the bath & body section of the website.

The website had a gift section which comprised a lot of sets. The only gift sets visible in store were an Eve Lom and a Malin + Goetz. The main fragrances in store were Diptyque, Acqua di Parma and Tom Ford - both of which were featured online. Serge Lutens and Antonia's Flowers made nice additions.

The most prominent make up brands when you walked into store were By Terry and Eve Lom - through Laura Mercier, Nars, Hourglass... were also present. Eve Lom was surprisingly pretty far down the foundation page of the site, though By Terry and Nars were packshots on the makeup page.

So there you have it, my comp of comp shopping. It's amazing what you can learn from presence and presentation, before you even get to sales figures and stock holding. I impulse purchased a lip liner while I was in store -  the perils of field work! I didn't buy anything while online, though I don't think you should read anything into that!

Hope you've had a great weekend!

Summer IS Coming

Hay Copenhague Barstool (designed by Ronan and Erwan Bourboullec) £206 from Haus, Stelton Cylinda Martini Mixer and Cocktail Shaker £69.95 and £119 from Occa Design, Uniqlo Supima Cotton Sweater £19.90, J.Crew Broken-In Chinos £75, Maison Francis Kurkdjian Zinc Globe Trotter Atomiser €85 (refils for €60) and Acqua Universalis 70ml €110, Acqua di Parma Ginepro di Sardegna 75ml and Deo Spray £54 and £27

So it feels as if I have been setting Seasonal Ideal Stock Levels constantly since the beginning of the year. As I've described before, sales patterns change at Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter and Father's Day, and you need to make sure the stock is in place by using special Seasonal IS levels.

But before July, August and September, I need to review the Standard IS levels. I'm working on this at the moment.

These are generally quite quiet months, with no events (like Valentine's or Mother's Day) to interrupt them. Local customers might go on holiday and be replaced by tourists with different purchasing preferences. And so to realise sales potential, and avoid overstocks, it's necessary to reset your Standard IS levels using last Summer's sales.

To do this, I will calculate the average weekly sales of each product in each store. If a store receives weekly orders and runs on three weeks of stock, I will set their IS level at three times their average weekly sales.

There are special-case products, of course: ones that sell infrequently but of which you need one or two on hand at all times; testers, samples and wrapping (I try to base my samples and testers on sales and my wrapping materials on consumption). But apart from that, it's pretty simple.

September is a small event in my calendar. In France, it's called the Rentrée. It's the time when you get back into everyday life, after your summer break. And some people like to buy themselves something - as a treat after they return to work, or as an inducement to work hard through the autumn/winter, or just because it's a fresh start. So I'll probably check the IS levels against September's sales, come the beginning of August, to make sure the stores won't be short of anything they need.

So this is how my year looks -

January to June - setting of standard IS levels, setting and re-setting of seasonal IS levels to meet the demands of shopping events such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter....

July to September - review of standard IS levels

October to December - setting of seasonal IS levels so that the stores are ready for Christmas.

With Father's Day, the last of my spring events, on the horizon, I decided to post a selection of men's merchandise. Have a great weekend!

We've just got back from a trip to Rabat, Morocco. It was such a wonderful weekend I'm worried that if I think about it too much, or try to describe it in too great detail, it will slip away from me - I'll realise my memory is incomplete or inaccurate. It's sort of taken on the qualities of a mirage!

So to sketch out our stay, everything we saw was remarkable in its own way: the Kasbah was so colourful; the Medina and Souk were so bustling and fragrant (literally kilograms of herbs were for sale - thyme, mint, others I couldn't identify); the Chellah - a ruin dating back to Roman times, now the roost of dozens of storks - so dramatic; Tour Hassan - a half-built, twelfth-century minaret, covered in intricate Islamic brickwork - so beautiful.
Our accommodation was charming and the food was good.

Even retail in Rabat was remarkable. In the Medina, you could buy anything you could possibly want (fresh fruit and veg (melons, mulberries, artichokes, peas...), the aforementioned herbs, tortoises, teapots, rugs, MacBooks!) There was little touting of wares and, even when you entered a shop, there was minimal pressure to purchase. We did manage to buy a couple of souvenirs though, including a tajine from the charity Terres de Femmes.

I don't think I saw an outlet of a brand I recognised the entire time I was there. Though apparently, there was a Diesel, and a handful of other stores I know, in the Mega Mall, on the outskirts.
When I leafed through a local magazine, it seemed Rabat was less a retail centre than Casablanca and Marrakech. There, I got the impression that there were some good independent boutiques. There were also some striking features on kaftans and beauty treatments.

Anyway, if I were trying to recreate the feel of the holiday at home, I would buy some things similar to the below. There were lovely textiles, rugs and cushions, everywhere. In the Kasbah's Café Maure, mint tea was poured into glasses a bit like these. And the delicious hotel breakfast incorporated lemon marmalade and fig jam - trop bon! A holiday that was trop bien!

 Tory Burch Cotton Kaftan £285, Garden Trading Recycled Glass Tumblers £22 for 4, Toast Hand-Blown Glass £13.50, Thorody Ivor Cushion £75, Bonne Maman Lemon Marmalade and Fig Preserve £2.29, Dinny Hall Talitha Earrings £455, Isabel Marant Textured Bead Bracelet £70

I've been saying that I'll post about my competitive shop for a mighty long time now! But we've been so busy doing... well what haven't we been busy doing?!

I've been checking the store stock levels very regularly, pouncing on anything that's selling more quickly than expected. I've only had to send one urgent order - woo!
We've been getting ready for stocktake - tidying up the system (deleting obsolete products...), sending out instructions to the stores and planning all the reporting.
And I've been making sure everything's wrapped up nicely for the end of the year: doing some big transfers/write-offs, checking there are no outstanding orders on my system or our finance package, etc. ..

The other massive job is preparing for the sale - but I think that deserves a post of its own.

So, to the competitive shop:

I found some wonderful vm in Aesop: colour-blocked windows presenting gift sets; autumn leaves piled up in corners of the store (this made it feel really contiguous to the street, so much easier to wander into...)
Jo Malone was looking great, but then Christmas really is their time of year - their packaging is so sophisticated. They had some adorable tree decorations and crackers containing mini products. Reasonably-priced too.
Molton Brown's standout product was the £38 Bathing Treasures Collection - an irresistible rainbow of 12 shower gels. And the snow-dome window was certainly fun.
At Le Labo, Christmas seemed to have passed them by a bit, but I guess tinsel would sit a bit strangely with their very industrial, minimal aesthetic.
Liberty's beauty hall was buzzing festive shoppers. I loved the Diptyque and Frederic Malle special editions to celebrate the department store's anniversary - lovely prints on normally so simple packaging.
 
I did come up with quite a fun game as well - spot the products in Liberty's window. There's one of my attempts and a couple of other pictures below.

Bottom left, clockwise: CO Bigelow, Cold and Flu Soak (?), Nesti Dante Il Frutteo Soap; Byredo Peyote Poem Candle (?); Crazy Loafers; Acqua di Parma fragrance; Maison Francis Kurkdjian fragrance; Penguin; Fornasetti Sun Print Cup and Saucer; Cute Duck Soap-on-a-Rope

Enjoy the last crazy couple of days before Christmas.

Last weekend was the weekend of a long- and excitedly-awaited trip to Copenhagen. We had a wonderful time, though we were up against it a bit: our flight was delayed by 16 hours (meaning we had to spend a night in glamorous Crawley); and the weather was so cold, I had to stop every couple of hours to thaw out my hands with a coffee/Gløgg.

Sadly, we didn't make it to the Little Mermaid - it would've meant spending too long out in the sheet ice and falling snow. We did however see a beautiful Rodin of three sirens in a gallery that I'd really recommend, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

 

The Sirens by Auguste Rodin at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Tromborg Below 10 Degrees Cream 580DKK, Ilse Jacobsen Rain Boot 850DKK, Designers' Remix Quilted Bomber Jacket 1300DK

Apart from that, we admired the grand city hall, the striking Rundetaarn and the sinuous serpent-tail-spire of the old stock exchange. We spent an evening amid the Christmassy illuminations of the Tivoli gardens, saw adorable animals at the Zoo (baby elephant, baby giraffe and young tapir included) and tried to absorb the vibe of Christiania. The cocktails, Danish pastries and smørrebørd were, without exception, exceptional.

Now, back to topic! Just a stone's throw from charming Nyhavn, is the lovely department store, Magasin du Nord. From the outside, you see a lot of cast iron and carved masonry, and, at the moment, Christmas lights and window displays. Inside, we found a good homeware department - brands like Bodum and Stelton - and beauty department (the usual plus Tromborg, an organic Danish company whose Stratus fragrance and Below 10 Degrees Face Cream were very tempting!)

My favourite emporium however was Illum Bolighus, with its chic entrance - all striped scandi wood and brushed-metal escalators. They deal very much in high design - furniture, lighting, Danish fashion (brands like Ilse Jacobsen and Designer's Remix)

We missed the Design Museum sadly. We thought it would be open on Saturday. However, on our way to the real Zool. Have (i.e. Zoological gardens), we chanced upon Design Zoo - beautiful ceramics, jewellery and Christmas decorations.

We also stepped into Rocket - a high street store selling gifts, homeware and confectionary - cheaply and cheerfully. I believe there's one in Stratford, London, if you want to check it out.

All in all, a perfect weekend of festive tourism and Christmas shopping - I'd advise anyone to go!

(Design Zoo, Vesterbrogade 137)

So as I mentioned, I was in France towards the end of last week - visiting stores, checking the managers were happy with everything before Christmas, checking I was happy with everything before Christmas.

Feeling was good, though sales at the moment aren't the best. No manager complained about their level of any particular product - that was a relief, I can tell you! And they're all positive about our Christmas range. It's normal for French Christmas shoppers come out later than their British cousins, after all.

With sales sluggish, I'm planning to put together some analysis of last year, look at exactly when we saw an increase, how it developed and if there are any telltale, early stages.

I'm going to be applying my last ideal stocklevel increases before the next few orders. And as I say, before every order I check last years' sales for a period equivalent to the one this order is meant to last and increase levels as necessary.

There are a couple of products - our bestsellers, products customers are saying they 'esperent recevoir de père Noël' (are hoping to receive from father Christmas)... - that I want to keep an eye on. I'll look at the percentage sales increase per week for that product (or similar) last year. And make sure that, given each week's sales this year, they have enough to sustain them.

These are interesting weeks, you can feel the excitement - you could cut it like a ripe French cheese (brought back some super, buttery saint marcellin, by the way). But for the moment, we just have to sit and check (and double check and triple check) and wait.

If customers delay Christmas shopping much longer though, I'll have to start transferring November sales into December - and then things'll get really interesting!

So Paris wasn't all work - it's a playful city too. I made it back to my favourite Lebanese take-away, near the Pompidou centre, where I had a crisp, flaky lebanese pizza, slathered in aromatic thyme herb-mix, zaatar. Once again I promised myself I'd try making zataar - and this time I actually stuck to my word. See below for the not so so shabby results.

Paris always makes me want to buy candles; they do candles very well the Parisians, from historic Cire Trudon, to society-staple Diptyque, to young, fashionable brands like 'Popup Paris', which puts a diamond in 1 out of every 50 of its candles! Above, there are a few on a thyme-theme that I think you might like. 

American brand Izola's candles are made from vegetable wax and come in recycled glass containers, $35; Cire Trudon has supplied royalty and the church since 1643 - Empire combines lavender, marjoram, thyme and rosemary, juniper, sage, pine and hay! €60; St Eval make all their products in Cornwall - like this thyme and mint scented candle, £7.85; Fornasetti's candles make a visual and olfactive statement, effusing incense, thyme, lavender, orris (or iris root) and cedarwood. Famous artist, Piero Fornasetti, collected owls wherever he went, and once even organised an exhibition of what he had 'deniched' - hence the print; €130 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend x


Recipe
Zataar - 2 bunches of thyme, 3 tsp sesame seeds, 3 tsp sumac, pinch salt, olive oil; Pizza - 250g strong white flour, 125ml warm water, 1/2 tbsp dried yeast, 2 tsp sugar, pinch salt and pepper

Dissolve the yeast in 75ml of the water and leave for 10m. Sift the flour and then stir in the yeasty mixture, the sugar and seasoning. Add the rest of the water little by little. When it comes together, flour your hands and the work surface and kneed for 10m. Leave to prove for 1-2 hours. Knock the dough back and kneed again for a minute or two. Halve the dough and gently roll it and stretch it to form two pizza bases.
Strip the leaves from the thyme (you'll get thyme under your finger nails, but it smells lovely), chop finely and place in a mortar. Toast the sesame seeds and add to the thyme along with the sumac and salt. Pound for a couple of minutes. Add olive oil until you have a pesto-like consistency.
Spread over your pizza bases, adding black olives, chopped halloumi, roasted cherry tomatoes if you like, and bake at 190oC until your pizzas are crisp enough for you.