Projects: New Shoppers Drug Mart Boutique

August 28, 2013 by Dave Haynes

Canadian retailer Shoppers Drug Mart has always done a roaring trade in crazily high margin, and crazily tiny, jars, vials and tubs of beauty products, and has been putting more and more of an emphasis on that in its pharmacy locations across the country.

The retailer today opened a beautyBOUTIQUE at the hyper-busy Toronto Eaton Centre – a 4,000 sq ft small-ish footprint location that is focused more on prestige brands and amped up with a ribbon of digital screens.

The design, says a release, was inspired by a gift box and the idea of unravelling a ribbon to reveal the present. The ribbon concept can be seen in the elements of the store design including the digital signage wrapped around the boutique and the finishing elements extending over the fixtures to the ceiling. The boutique’s design allows customers to feel comfortable browsing in an environment that is modern, sleek and interactive while also catering to their need to complete their shopping quickly.

“It was the right time to evolve and enhance our concept to modernize the fixtures, adapt to changing shopping behaviours, incorporate new communication vehicles like digital signage and grow our brand assortment to include new prestige vendors,” said Cathy Masson, Vice-President Category Management, Shoppers Drug Mart. “We introduced this new concept all while holding true to our principles of knowledgeable and unbiased service in an enjoyable and convenient shopping experience”.

Don’t know anything about the tech being used or who did the integration. A source tells me it is Scala software and a small local integrator called Gridcast. The release says this is the second such boutique. The other one is also in Toronto.