Notícias • 10 09 2014

A new generation of cultural retail centres

In 1973, E. Leclerc wanted to make culture accessible to everyone and opened its first dedicated space. In 1989, they opened their first Cultural Retail Centre, experiencing growing success. Today E.Leclerc group owns 215 Cultural Retail Centres next to hypermarkets in shopping malls, and has become the second largest network of booksellers in France For this third generation of Cultural Retail Centres, we created a system based on the convergence of contents and containers, in line with a growing consumption of cultural products.

The new generation of Cultural Retail Centres is designed as a dual-purpose store of 850m2 (1.800m2 for the largest shops). It is divided into two clearly distinct areas: at the periphery, cultural content, in the middle, the containers. Before creating the concept, we worked with major manufacturers: Samsung, Nikon, Philips, to understand market trends, how to organise product ranges, and the impact of the dematerialisation of music and images. The store is connected to the new multi-channel e-commerce website of the brand, and orders bought online can be collected at the Click & Collect point from the nearest store.

The first pilot store opened in December 2013 in Tarbes, with further roll-out during 2014.