LS Travel Retail, says its new chocolate retail concepts at Singapore’s Changi Airport have proven so successful, the model is being adapted for New York.

The company, part of Lagardere Group, engaged Retail Access to design four stores in Terminal 2.

The requirements: the stores had to accommodate a large brand portfolio, introduce innovations into the confectionery shopping experience, increase shopper engagement and differentiate two of the four stores with different branding. In total, Retail Access Singapore had to design more than 470 sqm of retail space.

“One of the main challenges was to create a clear and organised, yet inviting in-store navigation,” the design team explains.

“So Chocolate stores carry a great number of brands, so Retail Access Singapore worked on categorising the brands and making them easy for shoppers to find.

“Another challenge was the Travel Retail environment and how to attract the busy travellers of an airport by increasing the in-store dwell time. There was also a store structural constraint because the biggest store was open-ceiling and with no walls.

With four stores in the same terminal, Changi Airport management wanted two brands to avoid sameness of retail offer. So the second brand The Chocolatier was developed and a completely different store design created.

As a category management solution, the agency created emotional messaging for each brand’s category using distinctive colours: Loved by all, Finest Moments, Twinkles of joy, Tasty bites and Taste of Singapore.

Retail Access Singapore leveraged the yellow colour of So Chocolate branding by designing a well-lit ribbon pelmet to pull shopper’s attention. Retail-tainment solutions were also proposed to increase dwell time, through the “So Chocolate Selfie corner”, personalised gifting ideas and fun shopping through “buckets of joy”.

Since Lagardere’s chocolate stores also carry their own products under the brand of Taste of Singapore, the team designed market-specific fixtures leveraging local touristic cues such as the Merlion and Singapore Flyer.

Since the stores opened, the new design is attracting more travellers than expected, and the average basket size per shopper is higher than forecast.

As a result, the Singapore So Chocolate concept created by Retail Access Singapore is currently being adapted by the Open D Group office in New York for introduction into JFK Airport – and will likely be exported to more countries where Lagardere operates travel retailing.