Heathrow Airport
Advancing the marketplace concept at Heathrow
Heathrow Airport Retail Director Fraser Brown talks about the retail opportunity as part of the company’s wider ecommerce strategy. By Dermot Davitt.
From small beginnings this summer, Heathrow’s Reserve & Collect programme will become a core platform of the airport company’s drive to develop an online marketplace with a curated brand offer.
So says Heathrow Retail Director Fraser Brown, just weeks after the new programme went live with a bespoke retail offer. It operates in parallel to the existing heathrow.com ecommerce site.
“What we know is that consumers engage more with airports and airlines in a digital sense but we are seeing them, especially post-pandemic, engage more with retail online. We need to put the right offer in front of them there and monetise that ‘digital dwell’.
“This is especially the case as physical space becomes more constrained in the terminals so we need to look at other solutions.”
Under the new service the shopper can order online weeks ahead or even a short time before the flight, from the terminal, and the range that is available will appear on the website. They then pay online before picking up purchases from a collection point.
Brown says: “Most airports do digital via reserving and collecting, and you still pay in-store. Here we have built a retail digital marketplace, where we take your money and distribute it across multiple retailers after the sale is made. You can now shop a limited basket of retail brands and make one payment.
“We think there is a future in having an online model, a small front of house with clever logistics to ensure you have got a broad range.
“It also connects well to our four retail pillars of digital, experience, space and offer. We are space-constrained and cannot offer all the brands that we want to, so having this ability to stock brands digitally only will create something new, certainly in European airports.”
The opportunity for brands lies in exposure to an enviable passenger demographic. There is also no requirement for fulfilment, as they have already supplied Heathrow directly with a consignment of goods. The agreements are designed under a concession model for brands who do take part.
“We are not the retailer,” says Brown. “We arrange the last few yards of the process, but the brands supply us and when we get paid, we pass that back to them. Importantly also, they don’t compete with the goods we have in the stores.”
Heathrow Retail Director Fraser Brown
Shoppers can also create a basket that includes bespoke marketplace items, and as part of the transaction order can buy from World Duty Free or other partners.
There is also an opportunity to take stock from a retailer that has physical space only in one terminal and offer it for purchase and collection at another terminal. Plus Heathrow also plans to open the offer to lounge users, delivering to them in their seats.
Taking a digital leap forward with Reserve & Collect at Heathrow Airport
Educating consumers is the next step. Brown says: “We have enough traffic at heathrow.com to begin with. It’s about diverting the awareness to our online boutique, which is easier than getting people to come to the site in the first place. We can carry the message across services to attract people, even when they are in the terminal already.”
Heathrow’s aim is to secure ten brands that are available via the marketplace system by the end of 2024, and 20 brands in 2025, as the bespoke offer grows.
“This is an investment in our capital and our people’s time but we think it has legs,” says Brown.
shortly*The full interview with Fraser Brown appears in our October Magazine edition, out in coming days, with hard copies available at TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.
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The Moodie Davitt eZine
Issue 338 | 27 September 2024
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