Lands’ End Unveils New Store Concept
Lands’ End earlier this month unveiled a new 5,000-square-foot store concept in Kildeer, IIl. According to the company, it’s the first of four to six stores Lands’ End plans to open in 2018. The new store offers a “customer first” modern shopping experience, including a fitting room lounge with comfortable chairs, catalogs, a phone connected to the company’s call center, sales associates to answer questions, computers, and a touchscreen kiosk. The kiosk enables shoppers to search Lands’ End entire assortment online. Lands’ End offers free shipping and free returns for all orders placed from the store. The store is designed with rooms that separate and define clothing categories; visual displays that feature seasonal, iconic items and also note the product’s history; and digital signage that showcases multimedia content such as photos, videos and social media.
Total Retail's Take: It's always refreshing to hear about a retailer experimenting with new stores, especially with all of the talk about the death of the retail store lately. Lands’ End is traditional retail brand that's working to evolve with the times to better meet the needs of today's consumers. In January, Lands’ End announced plans to open between 40 to 60 stores during the next five years on the heels of a strong earnings report. The retailer reported its third successive quarter of positive earnings for the fourth quarter of 2017, in the wake of 11 quarters of decline. Net income for the fourth quarter was $39.8 million on $510 million in revenue vs. a net loss of $94.8 million on revenue of $458.8 million for the previous year's comparable quarter. Last year, Lands’ End achieved its first 12-month profit since 2014.
