The brick-and-mortar high-street retail trade has been reacting to online retail for some time in order to confront the competition from the Internet, and has been developing new retail concepts with a much more impressive character of the store’s display areas than mere ‘showrooms’ as well as attractive restaurant formats with a high quality of stay and an indispensable culinary offering and overall experience. There’s a rule that says “you can’t do business with hungry customers” – which of course dictates that the integration of gastronomic offerings in conventional retail is significantly increased, in order to increase – in addition to frequency – the time customers spend in the store or on a particular shopping street.
The modern retail trade makes use of modern gastronomy concepts. The decisive difference to e-commerce providers lies in so-called ‘festivalisation’ or ‘eventisation’. Providers focus on the experience character and concentrate on not just the actual product, but also on the buying event and the brand.
A perfect example of this development is the Italian concept Eataly which, in addition to numerous stores worldwide, opened its first European location outside Italy, together with SIGNA Retail, in the converted Munich Schrannenhalle in November of 2015. Numerous restaurants and food stands are arranged over an area of around 4,500 square metres. There is also a large shopping area with around 10,000 Italian delicatessen products, a cooking school with regular classes and a large wine cellar.
