Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Habitat launched its new stand-alone flagship store in Brighton city centre today (Friday November 9).
As part of the 1.3 acre Hannington Estate redevelopment, the 6,500sq ft shop at 23-25 North Street is the homeware retailer’s third largest store in the UK.
The two-storey branch features more than 3,000 products across housewares, furniture, lighting, textiles and home accessories. The ground floor is mainly allocated to housewares, upholstery and home accessories, while downstairs features bedroom furniture, office, and textiles.
Habitat managing director Clare Askem said: “This is our first city-centre flagship store for 10 years so it’s a really exciting development for Habitat, and an example of how we’re evolving store formats and services to suit how customers are shopping for homewares.
“As our digital sales go from strength to strength, we’re also seeing customers who want to shop in an immersive environment and touch and feel the Habitat products we create.
“Our long heritage with Brighton means we have many fans who have been asking us to return with a city centre store, so we felt that to launch our first inspirational flagship environment would really work here.
“Since we’ve opened our doors, we’ve had a phenomenal reaction from customers delighted to see us back. We’re now looking forward to making this store a real design hub for Brighton by creating an inspiration atmosphere in which to shop, with regular local collaborations and customer workshops to hero the creative spirit of the city.”
A total of 17 staff work in-store, on-hand to explain product features and highlight additional product options from Habitat’s 4,500 product collection online that can be ordered for home delivery or Click & Collect from over 2,000 locations in the UK.
Habitat has also unveiled a collaborative project partnering with three local artists. Their artwork has been translated into a limited edition series of rugs that are available to buy sell in-store. Habitat plans to continue this project each year, asking local artists to submit artwork to be turned into products that will feature in the Habitat collection.
Andrew Foulds, portfolio director at Redevco, owner and developer of the Hanningtons Estate commented: “We’re delighted to see the new Habitat flagship store open within the Hanningtons Estate. Our vision for the North Street element of the redevelopment project was to extend the premium retail offer already found in East Street and attract the very best brands to Brighton.
“This first new store opening demonstrates that if you create the right environment for retailers, they will come. Habitat leads the way with affordable, contemporary and stylish homeware and has been a pleasure to deal with on this project.”
Habitat now has four stand-alone flagship stores at Tottenham Court Road in London (25,000sq ft), Finchley Road in London (18,000sq ft), Westfield London-White City (4,700sq ft) and Brighton, as well as a 2,000sq ft Mini store in Leeds. There are 11 Mini Habitat stores (in Sainsbury’s supermarkets) which measure around 2,000sq ft and stock 600-plus products. The Habitat brand has been owned by Sainsbury’s since September 2016. Habitat also operates a digital store at habitat.co.uk which offers over 2,300 Click & Collect locations and home delivery nationwide.
Habitat Brighton’s kitchenware and tabletop department
