Alhambra, Berlin

What: a multi-concept space where brands and artists showcase their work.

Why is it important: there has been an emergence of physical market-places worldwide -look at Neighborhood Goods, Naked Retail and Showfields in NYC for example- as a way to support DTC brands and  local brands, and to cater to the local community. With, most of the time, exclusive brands and items, these locations are the new type of department stores.

Berlin's Alhambra building is an architectural landmark known for the local community located on the Kurfürstendamm luxury shopping mile of the capital with a nearly 100-year history. It has grown into an interactive multi-purpose co-retailing space where brands, artists, and designers will showcase their products. Stretching over 1 100 sqm across two floors, the concept should open in Spring 2021.

Alhambra Berlin provides a full-service amplification kit for emerging brands by offering a space, a built-in social media campaign, impressive staging, as well as professional salespersons and event managers. They intend to make things easier for local brands that are looking for more exposure by eradicating the time-consuming and money-intensive exercise of finding the correct venue.

Space & concept

The store will emphasise each partner brand story by giving them individual stages. dividing the space into small corners for both pioneering and leading brands, in order to keep the location attractive.This new form of retail space will benefit both the creators of Alhambra and brands as it will grow customer traffic for experiential shopping and offer an easy long-term rental contract.

This crossover between shopping and experience will bring emerging talents together. Pioneering brands will have the opportunity to get enough exposure and test if their products could be successful in a competitive market.

Experience

The assortment is an important experiential feature since it is always rotating, nothing in the shop is static. All the fixtures are made to be conveniently moved and exchanged allowing consumers to interact with the products. The store can turn from a fashion destination to an exhibition venue as works from local artists are also on display, instore and in the 17-metre high windows which face the city's most frequented retail area. The creators of the store vision it as a social hub were visitors can engage with their surroundings.

The Alhambra new concept store will implement mall intimate events, bringing brands and products together where they can interact. The store offer features fashion + accessories, interior + living, beauty + health, travel + leisure, tech + mobility, art + design.

Local

The location is an architectural landmark well-known in the local community; and with new shopping behaviours from the German consumers favouring local business accented by the crisis, retailers are rethinking their assortment. As people spend most of their time at home and will not be travelling soon, they are looking for stores near them, even if they order online.

Adapting to new consuming habits and identifying the new trends is key in these uncertain times when many of the flagships depends on tourism sales. The local retail has its advantages such as increasing quality offer, better customer relationship, developing loyalty and supporting the local economy

Technology

The store will provide real-time feedback thanks to their guest management system that can track the activity of the visiting crowds while respecting the policies of data privacy and protection. With the gathered information they can curate the visitors by age range, how much time they spend instore and even if it is a unique visit. The system gives unique information for future store strategies and releases information the consumers such as: "Do they try the product?" or "Do they interact with the sales team?"

The store also plans to develop more functionality over the next year through an app to customise the experience for customers. Their communication tools will meet the evolving preferences for digital-to-physical interaction by knowing in real-time what the audience and guests want to see and hear about. With this information customers can schedule and entirely customise their visit to Alhambra Berlin to suit their own tastes.

By optimising the shopping experience with an efficient distribution of the space and an analysis of real-time content, the store becomes the perfect landscape for digital strategies to meet physical retail.

The store also take care to deliver brand messages across relevant media channels such at their public website, social media networks, magazines, etc.

Alhambra Berlin's Concept for Retail in a Post-Covid Era