“A great example of bringing retail into an airport in a way that hasn’t happened anywhere else in the world yet.” So says Alpha Retail UK Managing Director Reg Curtis as he explains the high-risk, edgy approach that the Autogrill subsidiary took to creating its new-look Biza store at Manchester Airport. Martin Moodie reports.

“We deliberately set out to be bold; we deliberately wanted to rip up the formula of airport retail and be a lot more high street in our inspiration. And I think as you walk round the store you can see this store is edgy, it is different, it is bold.”

Alpha Retail UK Managing Director Reg Curtis is referring to Alpha Group’s new Biza Tax & Duty Free store, which formally opened at Manchester Airport Terminal 1 in late October.

The 2,635 sq m store represents a radical overhaul of the main travel retail offer at the terminal, which is itself undergoing a major modernisation. As one nears the big, wide entrance, the impression is of approaching a New York urban warehouse rather than a conventional department store-type duty free shop.

Curtis’s mission statement of being “brave, bold and different” certainly finds voice in an unusual store where the retailer and its designers worked with complex, awkward and at times ungainly airport architecture to create a vibrant, edgy shopping environment.

The entrance is dominated by a giant monochrome Biza logo – out goes the trademark Alpha pink, in comes black and white – while the immediate entry zone of the store  is notable for a dramatic Champagne display (featuring Veuve Clicquot at the time of our visit) with cascades of hand-blown glass bubbles hanging from the ceiling.

Beyond the liquor and tobacco area at the front of the store travellers are encouraged to explore a series of “life-style zones” and product hubs. These include ‘Uthopia’, which targets younger female consumers with a number of ‘on trend’ fashion and beauty lines, most of them new to travel retail.

‘Adorn-me’ focuses on female shoppers seeking handbags and accessories, and ‘All About Me’ groups cult and alternative beauty products, cosmeceuticals and spa lines. New arrivals here include This Works, Smiley (an anti-depressant perfume – perfect for these troubled times) and Tri-Aktiline.

‘Urban Male’ offers a range of grooming products, leathergoods and gifts for the male traveller, while the Candy Garden confectionery zone is notable for its giant, clear, acrylic pods packed with retro-style ‘pick and mix’ sweets. The store closes with the nicely named ‘Final Call’, a collection of some of the most popular items, particularly fragrances and liquor.

Curtis says the lifestyle zones featured in the Manchester store are designed to drive footfall and conversion via a combination of uniqueness and diversity . But it was far from a straightforward challenge, he points out.

“As usual with airports you don’t get a complete choice over the space you operate in, so we really had to make the most of what we’ve got,” he notes. “In the store we move from a very high ceiling area, down to a really quite low point before it opens up again. We’ve used the architecture of the airport and wrapped our store design around it.

“In Manchester, as with a lot of these airport terminals that have grown over time, there are bits that have been added on. We deliberately haven’t tried to hide that. There’s piping, there’s brickwork, there’s breezeblock – you can see it all. We’ve just wrapped ourselves around it and we haven’t obscured it, we’ve just worked with it.”

Biza has also been rolled out at Newcastle International and East Midlands airports. The brand identity, architecture, interior design and point of sale/ticketing were created by leading design agency HMKM. Besides the architecture and the zoning of the Manchester store, the other highlight is the branding – a big play for a retailer that had long put such faith in its loud, pink Alpha message.

“We’re really pleased with it,” says Curtis. “One of the design principles that we set out originally three years ago was to really rip up the formula of tax and duty free retail in airports, and to bring a bit of hight street magic to it.

“So we’ve created a brand (Biza) that we talk about first and foremost....rather than tax and duty free, or some play on the term duty free, which a lot of our competitors around the world use. So this has a very high street feel, it’s very fashion-orientated, it’s very contemporary.”

That wish to distinguish the environment and offer form travel retail norms particularly mainfests itself in the seven zones. “Again rather than using normal, department-type language like the confectionary department, we;ve used terms such as Candy Garden,” says Curtis. “They’re really just to change the tempo, the pace, the speed, and to change our own staff’s expectation about what it is they’re supposed to do in thos areas. So Candy Garden is a lot lighter, more fun, it’s a bit more American perhaps and that comes through in the products and the way they’re merchandised and the way we want people to buy. It’s less value-driven, less ‘supermarkety’, and a lot more fun and light-hearted.”

Encouragingly, Biza at Manchester also features a strong Sense of Place. “We’ve deliberately set out to try and help Manchester – as the heart of the North-West region – to really come on to the global stage,” says Curtis. “So we’ve brought in some really key international brands like La Prairie and Sisley.

“But we’ve also brought in some more niche brands, and some more local brands. For example, there is Ringspun (the self-styled ‘Kings of Street Bling’ – Ed) which is a small fashion brand that we’re selling in the Uthopia zone. It is very well known in Manchester, has a Manchester designer, is Manchester-orientated, and probably outside of Manchester wouldn’t be known. Nevertheless that is how we’ve tried to bring the store back to its origins and its roots here in Manchester.”

Curtis says that Alpha, in consultation with Manchester Airport, deliberately set about widening its offer to embrace consumers who often don’t buy duty free. “In terms of the store design we tried to cater for what was clearly an emerging market, which is young females in their mid-teens to mid-twenties. There is very little that is deliberately orientated particularly around them and their needs.

“You see great hordes of them going through here on a Thursday or Friday night, off on their hen parties, and this Uthopia zone is specifically orientated around them. It’s a lot more fun, it’s a lot more funky, in fact the end of the store is designed around a girl’s bedroom. The fixtures remind you of bedroom furniture, and we merchanside the products around that theme.”

The non-conformist approach carries through to the staff uniform – there isn’t one. “Normally in tax and duty free retail the staff uniform is a big issue,” Curtis explains. “It was such an issue for us that we laboured over it for months until in the end we decided the best way through it was to just not have a stagg uniform – to give the staff a clothing allowance and let them dress themselves in the way that they see suitable.

“There is still a dress code, and that is black and white, clearly to fit in with the palette of the brands. But if we allow people to dress themselves, then they can bring a sense of themselves to work rather than what they’ve been forced to waear. And that helps on the customer service side as well.

“If people are comfortable in their own clothes, then they’re more comfortable giving good customer service, and they bring a chunk of their own sense of fashion to work. That is exactly the mood we want people to come to work in.”

Of the many store openings that The Moodie Report attended in 2008, this is one of the most interesting. Certainly the initial impact is very striking, with the wines & spirits department spacious, innovative and diverse in its ranging (the wine offer and merchandising is particularly good). After the height of the first section of the store, there’s a slight feeling of crampedness as the ceiling levels drop, putting fragrances and cosmetics at a disadvantage; and the sheer variety of offer and merchandising at the back of the store might be disorientating to the first-time visitor.

Overall, though, Curtis is delighted at much of the execution, and pleased that the company embraced such a bold approach. “We’ve made errors, but everybody makes errors when doing something as completely new and radical as this. We’ll put that right. But overall the store is a great example of bringing retail into an airport in a way that hasn’t happened I think anywhere else in the world yet.”