Blue Water Bridge prepares for retail transformation

Gavin Lipsith

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The award-winning Canadian border operator has told RavenFox.com of a major renovation to its store planned for September

Blue Water Bridge Duty Free Shop is finalising plans for a major renovation and extension of its store on the Canada-US border. The work is the result of collaboration with a key supplier, customised on-site consumer research and a specially commissioned design project, and the retailer is hoping for an uplift of 3-5% following its completion in September.

Three-quarters of the store will be affected by the revamp and the retailer will turn some of its back warehouse into retail space, taking the total retail area to about 9,500sq ft (883sq m). The liquor offer will be extended, with an expanded wine boutique and a rejuvenated beer section, and the tobacco section will be extended and positioned at the back of the store, adjacent to the beer section.

Vice-president Tania Lee told RavenFox.com: “It all came about because a liquor supplier came to talk to us about retail transformation. We then brought in the Toronto arm of Research International and they did three weeks of exit interviews with customers... They thought that we could increase our sales simply by changing our layout...We took those results and went to an agency and came up with a new design for the store.”

The new design will focus on attracting spend from two of the four shopping groups identified in the research: shopping lovers and experimental shoppers.

For more on Blue Water Bridge’s plans and the research philosophy behind it, see DFNI June 15, out next week.