Multi-brand luxury shopping site Matchesfashion.com will commemorate its 30th anniversary with a new concept space in London’s Mount Street in Mayfair. This is not the first retail concept for the company that already owns a sprawling Georgian building in London’s Marylebone borough commonly used as an event space and to engage VIP customers by appointment. The newly acquired building of 5,000-square-foot spanning through six floors is estimated to be have been leased for about 600,000 pounds, or US $ 776,200 a year from property owners of the Grosvenor Estate.
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Situated at 5 Carlos Place, the town house concept space is key to driving Matchesfashion.com’s new retail strategy forward aiming for a merger of their three main customer touchpoints: the In-Residence events, the retail store, and the private shopping townhouse. The company wishes to create a physical experience that transverses seamlessly from their digital presence. “It’s for clients who, for whatever reason, don’t want to shop in a store,” explains Tom Chapman, Executive Chairman, Matchesfashion.com, adding, “5 Carlos Place is an opportunity to bring a sense of fun and enjoyment back into physical retail; to collaborate with partners, have conversations that create a sense of community and inspire our customers.”
Matchesfashion.com uses these spaces to engage with pre-existent high-value customers and the town house does not actually hold products like a traditional store. Gazetted personal shoppers interact with clients digitally, send them product recommendations and understand what the client wants and accordingly bring the merchandise to the town house. So the person will only see products that have been hand-picked for them, according to their brief. Chapman adds, “We do the hard work for you. We keep it simple for the customers. We don’t want to be a marketplace or a department store. We want to be a curation of brands, a place where you discover something new.”
For the new space, two retail floors will show a curated run of the platform’s online offering, with emphasis on emerging brands and exclusive collaborations. The store will focus on enhancing the experience via digital enhancements like auto-logins to a POS app and iBeacon technology enabling “Add to Basket” and “Wish List” functionalities direct from mobile to offer seamless omni-channel approach to shopping like their website.
The new space will also be home to the retailer’s In Residence events hosting a series of panel discussions, lifestyle workshops and highlighting emerging design talents to both the attending and digital audience of over 70 million customers.
