Sainsbury's to open four new Habitat concessions in coming weeks

Sainsbury's is planning to open four new mini-Habitat concessions inside its supermarkets in London, York, Manchester and Newcastle before the end of November.

The company announced the new 2,000 sq ft stores would follow the same footprint as the brand's current in-store formats, featuring over 600 products, including furniture, upholstery, lighting, homewares and textiles.

Clare Askem, Habitat Managing Director said “We’ve learnt lots of lessons from our six trial Mini stores in Sainsbury’s this year and these have been addressed in our upcoming store openings. We’ve refined our product range based on customer feedback, while our in-store visual merchandising and service proposition has been adapted to what customers want on a ‘weekly shop’ basis.”

Sainsbury's acquired Home Retail Group the owner of Habitat and Argos in a surprise move last year, and quickly began installing Argos and Habitat concessions across its supermarkets.

With 60% of Habitat's sales being made online, Sainsbury's says its investment in concession formats is aimed at expanding Habitat brand awareness with customers, and allowing shoppers to see the range in a convenient location.

Similar to the Argos digital stores, in-store screens and iPads will allow customers to access Habitat's full portfolio of over 4,500 products, which can then be ordered for home delivery or collection from more than 2,000 Sainsbury's locations across the UK.

Read - Habitat extends click'n'collect to 2,300 locations.

“Our customers increasingly want choice, flexibility and speed, and we are evolving the brand into a truly multi-channel business that allows customers to shop how and when they want – be that online, in-store or a combination of the two,” added Askem. "We believe physical stores will remain important to Habitat which is why we are evolving our store offer and rolling it out to four further shops."

Source: Insight Team

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