Mamas and Papas target millennials with new store concept

Children’s and maternity retailer Mamas and Papas has opened a specially designed concept store in London’s Westfield White City that it hopes will inspire and attract “tech-savvy, experience-driven” 28-35-year-old millennials, as part of its strategy to turn around the business.

Designed by creative agency Dalziel and Pow, the 5,005 square foot concept store provides a digitally-enhanced, full-service shopping experience organised into ‘worlds’ based around new parents’ key shopping missions.

The storefront opens into a fashion boutique, featuring curated product bundles named 'bundles of joy’ while moving wall projections of digital clouds transform into animal forms to bring a soft touch of technology to the space.

The next ‘world’ is travel, featuring a range of engaging tools to help parents-to-be find the perfect products, including a touchscreen Pushchair Finder, which asks the customer questions about themselves, their lifestyle and their child to help find, edit and select the best travel products for them, using animations and illustrations. Parents can also test out car seats and learn how to install them in context, in a cut out Mini installed on the shop floor.

Mamas and Papas launches new store concept

While the home section features domestic-style room set-ups covering sleeping, bathing, feeding and playing, designed to become a place for mums to meet locally for peer-to-peer support. In addition, this ‘world’ also features take-away postcards for discovering the full product range and helpful tips placed among the displays.

The whole concept has been designed to meet the needs of new and expected mothers, with comfortable seating areas, private changing and feeding rooms and a dedicated Personal Shopping area, with bespoke raised furniture, for one-to-one appointments, where customers can create a product wish list and learn about products while enjoying complimentary refreshments.

Mama and Papas have been in Westfield for some years, however, this new store has been relocated to the opposite side of the shopping centre, directly above a cluster of children’s stores on the lower level to attract its core customers.

This new look is part of Mamas and Papas ambition to become 'the world’s favourite nursery brand' following a difficult couple of years, which saw the retailer securing a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), before being acquired by private equity firm BlueGem Capital Partners.

Mamas & Papas, executive chairman Derek Lovelock has stated that more than 3 million pounds has been earmarked for new stores over the next year, and it is hoped that this concept will roll out to other retail locations, including Speke in Liverpool. Other plans for 2016 includes a new e-commerce platform and a loyalty programme.

Images: Mamas and Papas/Dalziel and Pow