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How can bricks-and-mortar stores compete for attention in the TikTok era of fast-paced scrolling?
Entrepreneur Ariel Haroush thinks he has the answer. On 30 October, he will open a new immersive concept on London’s Oxford Street called Future Stores, which aims to transform the way brands market and sell to consumers — enabling retail to move “at the speed of culture”.
“Today’s shoppers are driven by TikTok-length attention spans, and traditional retail simply can’t keep up,” says Haroush, giving Vogue Business a preview of the space. “How can you capture someone’s attention in today’s world, where information is flowing so fast? People love their Instagram or TikTok because it’s always interesting; there’s always a fresh reason to look. That’s what I’m trying to achieve with Future Stores.”
The 4,680-square-foot store will feature a rotating line-up of brand activations that will change every two to six weeks (the space can be used by one or more brands and can be divided into two rooms). These activations will be dynamic, meaning a brand could use the space one way during the day and transform it for the evening or tie it into a nearby cultural event. The idea is to create an experience that’s “as fluid as a social media feed”, Haroush says. The company declines to disclose its fees.
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It’s a bold gambit, given previous attempts at creating new, experiential bricks-and-mortar concepts haven’t always succeeded — and it won’t suit every brand. However, it raises some interesting questions about the future of retail.
As the founder of retail innovation agency Outform, Haroush has worked with the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Estée Lauder and Sephora on developing their retail vision, from design to execution. Over time, he identified some fundamental challenges in traditional retail that he wanted to address, including low engagement — due in large part to how homogeneous high streets were becoming — and difficulty when it came to measuring ROI. Future Stores was designed to address these pain points.
Along the back of the ground floor of the space — which spans an entire block of Oxford Street — are floor-to-ceiling high-definition micro-LED displays. The frontage is almost entirely glass, allowing passers-by to see the screens. And the screens are certainly head-turning. On the tour, Haroush switches from a welcome display to one tailor-made for consumer electronics firm Intel — Future Stores’s first brand resident — which features fluorescent jellyfish and a flying whale. This particular activation has been designed to show the possibilities of generative AI, so prompts appear on the screen above our heads. “Add grass to the foreground” is typed in, and lo, grass appears. When it opens at the end of the month, visitors will be able to play games live in store and buy Intel’s new range of AI PCs (PCs that come equipped with processors designed to run AI software on the device itself).
But it’s not just about immersive entertainment: there is an integrated payment system that allows brands to turn the space into a point of sale and a stockroom on the basement floor. Cameras capture data on shopper behaviour at a more granular level than traditional retailers (which typically rely on monitoring how many people cross the threshold). Currently, the team can track footfall inside and outside the store, dwell time and gender. Age and sentiment will follow in 2025.
“It’s an amazing canvas for storytelling in a retail environment where you can actually buy,” says Haroush. Consumers will also be able to connect with brands through live demos, tutorials and/or showcases led by influencers and creators. “In this way, it is more powerful than a traditional retail pop-up, whose ROI is hard to measure,” says Haroush.
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Creating places to be
Future Stores cost £20 million to build (the money came from a group of undisclosed private investors). It’s perhaps an unexpected investment in the high street, considering the battering retail took during the pandemic and slow rebound in footfall. However, the opening is, in many ways, well-timed.
Oxford Street has faced some major challenges in recent years, including the closure of some of its anchor tenants — such as Topshop and Debenhams — and a proliferation of low-quality retailers (notably, several harshly lit candy and souvenir stores). In 2023, business improvement district New West End Company (NWEC), which represents around 600 retailers and other companies in the West End of London, and Westminster City Council agreed to jointly invest £90 million in a public realm enhancement scheme, which will transform the street with wider paving, safer crossings and more seating. In the meantime, the retail offer is visibly improving: Ikea is set to open a flagship in the old Topshop unit at Oxford Circus, among others, and music chain HMV has returned to the street.
Many of the changes and challenges facing Oxford Street have played out across the UK retail sector as a whole, related to a wider shift in the purchasing journey (especially among Gen Z), which was accelerated by the outbreak of Covid-19. Against this backdrop, Oxford Street has been moving into a new mixed-use era with even greater emphasis on experience. “We’re now in a phase of retail where it’s not about selling things; it’s about creating places to be,” says Kate Hardcastle, a consumer expert who has been advising Haroush on the Future Stores project.
“Future Stores’s unique blend of retail and digital innovation makes it a fantastic addition to Oxford Street, which now boasts immersive retail and cultural attractions stretching from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch. These experiences have been highly successful in boosting footfall and creating a vibrant atmosphere along the street,” said Dee Corsi, chief executive of NWEC, in a statement.
Not for everyone
There are, of course, challenges to any new retail concept. On a practical level, it took a while to find the right size and shape of space: traditional retail units tend to be deep, while Future Stores needs to be wide and shallow. Then, there is the risk that, amid macroeconomic challenges, brands may pull back on investment in flashy marketing activations.
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Getting the curation of brands right is another consideration. “I’m afraid that we are going to fall into the trap of, OK, this is a consumer electronics type of space,” says Haroush. “These companies have a lot of money. But we don’t want it just to be about consumer electronics; it needs to be consumer electronics, then beauty, then fashion, maybe automotive and then an up-and-coming brand.”
Not every retailer will embrace such a digital-heavy space. He acknowledges this: “Some retail experiences will continue to be transactional. If you’re going into a grocery store, you don’t want to be dazzled. You want to buy a bag of crisps and go.” In fashion, you could imagine some brands eschewing this sort of sharp-edged digital environment in favour of a softer, more tactile experience for the shopper.
Future Stores will work for brands that want to create an emotional connection through storytelling, says Haroush. And he’s confident this will apply to a growing number of companies — so much so that expansion plans are already in motion for Paris and New York, with a second London site under consideration.
“Today’s shoppers want the story; they want to be engaged. Some retailers will be slow to change in this way, but change is inevitable.”
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