Lemens&Partners

Passionate about Creativity and Talent

Flora

What is a retail tour? Definition, process and benefits

by

A retail tour is a guided exploration of retail outlets in a city or neighbourhood, designed to discover innovative concepts, trends, how the market works, and what is successful elsewhere…

In other words, it is a form of market intelligence focused on exploring the retail sector.

It is also an opportunity to exchange ideas with experts and come away with insights into the market of the future.

extreme-cashmere-amsterdam-bibliotheque-cachemire-moquette-orange
Firn nouvelle marque parisienne
massimo-dutti-popup-mobilier-design-galerie

A retail tour is neither a sightseeing trip nor a shopping trip. On a retail safari, we observe, analyse and come away with key insights.

How long does it last?


The duration of a retail tour depends on the location and the objectives. Lemens & Partners organises a range of formats: short half-day or full-day sessions in Paris, featuring a presentation on trends and visits to one or more neighbourhoods.

The firm also organises longer, international sessions lasting two days or more in London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Germany, the USA, Seoul and elsewhere…

Where to go?

In Europe, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Madrid are among the most interesting cities, as they offer the most innovative concepts, ranging from pop-ups and flagship stores to cutting-edge customer experiences.

For many years now, Seoul in Asia has established itself as a retail laboratory. It is one step ahead of all the concepts that will be rolled out across the rest of the world.

activation marque Paris automne UGG
wilson-tennis-garden-galeries-lafayette-photos-joueurs
bonduelle-pop-up-epicerie-ludique-paris

Who are retail tours aimed at?

Retail tours are aimed at a variety of audiences:

  • Brands in the food, ready-to-wear, luxury, automotive, furniture manufacturing and sports sectors… For executive committees, sales staff, and marketing, communications and business development teams… The more diverse the teams, the more the retail tour will benefit from a range of enriching perspectives.
  • Design agencies, including creative teams and strategic planners… enabling them to enhance their market intelligence, explore new trends and concepts, and return with fresh ideas.
  • Any other professionals or organisations wishing to monitor retail trends.

Trends observed:


Lemens & Partners regularly shares its retail insights on its blog, as well as on LinkedIn and Instagram. Some major trends are highlighted there.

We analyse and study the latest global consumer trends and the direct impact they may have on businesses, whether in the digital, retail, mobility or sharing economy sectors.

Explore the trends

Chocolaterie Cédric Grolet expérience retail

What happens after a retail tour?

After each Retail Tour, we hold a debriefing session. Everyone leaves with their own roadmap, and we share the key takeaways.

We can support you by organising conferences that explore topics such as the customer journey, retail innovations, the success of omnichannel retailing, the importance of storytelling, digital transformation, technology as a tool to enhance the customer experience, developments in the luxury sector, consumer loyalty, the use of the five senses in the customer journey, as well as more general retail trends.

Discover our conferences

Reviews from our customers:

“I’m leaving feeling incredibly inspired: in terms of business and merchandising, the stage design, the work on the atmosphere, the lighting and the reduction in point-of-sale displays. And as for the town itself, what a revelation! This way of life really makes us question how we live in France. A truly memorable experience, well done and thank you again!”

“Thank you for this wonderful experience. I was struck by the striking merchandising that transforms an ordinary product into something desirable. The fragrance and the background music. The Rituals concept store made me change my mind about how I perceive this brand. Marketing is king; standing out is key, creating an atmosphere, storytelling. Being the best is all well and good, but being perceived as the best by every single person who visits our clients’ premises is even more important!”

“I would like to thank you once again for organising the Retail Tour. Thank you for your support and for making these two days such a success. It is now up to our participants to work on their projects.”

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Le Chocolat des Français opens in the Marais

by

The Lemens & Partners team visited Le Chocolat des Français’s fourth Parisian boutique, which opened two months ago in the Marais.

The space is characterised by colour, with walls perforated from floor to ceiling displaying the chocolate bars as if they were works of graphic art. It creates a world that is consistent with the brand: cheerful and instantly recognisable.

Le Chocolat des Français, founded by Matthieu Escande, Paul-Henri Masson and Vincent Muraire, is a brand built on a bold aesthetic featuring pop-art illustrations, collectable packaging and a visual identity that transforms chocolate into a cultural artefact as much as a gourmet treat.

Here, the brand’s visual identity extends beyond the packaging, permeating the entire space.

Le Chocolat des Français - Retail - Lemens & Partners
Le Chocolat des Français - Retail - Lemens & Partners
Le Chocolat des Français - Retail - Lemens & Partners
Le Chocolat des Français - Retail - Lemens & Partners
Le Chocolat des Français - Retail - Lemens & Partners

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

UGG sets up shop at Igor Stravinsky Square, a pop-up with no sales, but plenty of purpose

by

On 1 and 2 October, UGG set up its Parisian-style kiosk, with no products for sale. And yet, there was a queue of visitors, smiles, photos and gifts to take home.

The ‘Born to Feel’ campaign was displayed in large format on the façade. Inside, there were lifestyle Polaroids, shoe displays and postcards to take away.

activation marque Paris automne UGG
activation marque Paris automne UGG
activation marque Paris automne UGG

Visitors left with branded gifts, a branded can of water, a copy of “Le Monde” co-branded with UGG, a key ring… in exchange for simply signing up to the newsletter via a QR code.

These days, the most astute brands don’t always seek to make an immediate sale. They aim first and foremost to be felt, remembered and associated with a pleasant moment. UGG focuses first and foremost on creating a memory and building a relationship.

retail expérientiel sans vente UGG
retail expérientiel sans vente UGG
retail expérientiel sans vente UGG

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Hoka Paris, the technology becomes a tool for trust

by

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Hoka boutique at 14 rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie in Paris. A store open for two years, and a compelling illustration of how technology can transform a purchase into a moment of confidence.

Technology in the service of certainty

The Safesize technology scans the foot in 3D (length, width, arch height) and generates a precise recommendation in a matter of seconds, which model, which size, which level of comfort. The screen displays the result clearly, Excellent Fit, with a visualisation of the foot’s imprint and a comparison across several models in the range.

This is not a gimmick. It is a direct response to one of the main sources of hesitation in buying sports footwear, doubt about size, width, and fit. In a few seconds, the uncertainty disappears. The customer knows and so they buy with confidence, and come back.

hoka-borne-safesize-scan-pied-3d-boutique-paris
hoka-borne-safesize-scan-pied-3d-boutique-paris
hoka-mur-produit-road-trail-hike-boutique-paris

Human guidance all the way through

Technology does not replace advice, it strengthens it. The sales team uses the scan results to guide, compare and encourage the customer to try. This is far from generic counsel. This is on-the-ground expertise.

Un accompagnement humain jusqu'au bout La technologie ne remplace pas le conseil mais elle le renforce. Le personnel de vente s'appuie sur les résultats du scan pour orienter, comparer, faire essayer. On est loin du conseil généraliste, on est dans l'expertise terrain.
Un accompagnement humain jusqu'au bout La technologie ne remplace pas le conseil mais elle le renforce. Le personnel de vente s'appuie sur les résultats du scan pour orienter, comparer, faire essayer. On est loin du conseil généraliste, on est dans l'expertise terrain.
Un accompagnement humain jusqu'au bout La technologie ne remplace pas le conseil mais elle le renforce. Le personnel de vente s'appuie sur les résultats du scan pour orienter, comparer, faire essayer. On est loin du conseil généraliste, on est dans l'expertise terrain.

What this tells us about the future of retail

Hoka illustrates something essential about the retail of tomorrow: technology is not there to impress, it is there to reassure. A customer who understands why a product is right for them is a customer who buys, who returns, and who recommends.

Trust is the new loyalty lever. And it is built in the detail of a well-designed experience from the scanning station at the entrance to the conversation at the door on the way out.

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Diptyque on rue Duphot: the world’s largest flagship as a Parisian apartment

by

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Diptyque boutique at 7 rue Duphot, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. At 400 m², it is the largest Diptyque space in the world and one of the finest examples of sensorial retail we have visited.

On the ground floor: Le Comptoir à Eaux

The experience begins at the entrance with an ephemeral space called Le Comptoir à Eaux, available from 12 June to 31 August. Glass and steel shelving displays colourful bottles as many flacons of liquid fragrance. The tiled counter, with its embedded ice compartments, evokes a juice bar as much as a scent laboratory. Fruity, fresh, colourful, the concept is in perfect harmony with the summer season.

This is a trend we observe regularly on our retail tours this year: the vocabulary of the market, of fruits and vegetables brought to life, making its way into high-end brand universes as a way of humanising luxury.

This first chapter also creates a reason to return. A second episode “Les Eaux Holistiques” has already been announced, with no precise date as yet. It is an intelligent editorial choice: generating curiosity, anticipation, and repeat visits.

diptyque-comptoir-eaux-rez-de-chaussee-flagship-paris
diptyque-comptoir-eaux-rez-de-chaussee-flagship-paris
diptyque-comptoir-eaux-rez-de-chaussee-flagship-paris

Upstairs: La Galerie Héritage

La Galerie Héritage recreates the rooms of a Parisian apartment, living room, dining room, bathroom, reception space, each carrying its own scents, its own works of art, its own objects of curiosity.

In the living room, a marble fireplace in golden tones, framed paintings, candles placed with care between sculptures. In the dining room, a long luminous table beneath industrial chrome steel pendants. In the bathroom, a deep bathtub, an oval mirror suspended by intertwined ropes, a double stone washbasin on which body and bath products are presented as they would be in a real home.

Throughout, the history of the brand weaves itself into the works of art, and every atmosphere has its own products.

diptyque-galerie-heritage-Retail-Tour-Paris
diptyque-galerie-heritage-Retail-Tour-Paris
diptyque-salle-de-bain-miroir-suspendu-flagship-paris

What this tells us about the future of retail

Diptyque is not simply selling candles in a shop. The brand invites its visitors into a gallery that resembles an apartment, built to tell a story and make an entire universe felt. The ephemeral space on the ground floor creates renewal and curiosity. La Galerie Héritage upstairs anchors the brand in its heritage and its savoir-faire.

It is the combination of the ephemeral and the enduring, the seasonal and the timeless, that makes this boutique particularly remarkable.

Designing this kind of space requires profiles capable of thinking simultaneously about scenography, olfactory narrative, interior design and the overall client experience. The kind of talent that Lemens & Partners helps find every day.

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support luxury, fashion, retail and automotive companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Extreme Cashmere in Amsterdam: a shop that refuses to follow the rules

by

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Extreme Cashmere boutique in Amsterdam. A space worth dwelling on because it questions just about everything one expects from a point of sale.

From the moment you step inside, something does not match expectations. No visible clothes. No displayed prices. No screen. Instead: a bright orange carpet rising up the walls, a long brushed aluminium counter, and a sink (yes, a sink) sitting at the centre of the space as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

A space that owns itself as a place to live

The sink is not decorative. It serves a purpose for events hosted in the boutique, for washing pieces, for laying textiles out on the floor. Extreme Cashmere has designed its space the way one designs a home: functional, alive, inhabited. The hand-blown coloured glass pendants hanging from the ceiling white, blue, green, yellow add a touch of precious craftsmanship to a deliberately raw setting. The space expresses the same quality one finds in the garments themselves.

It is only at the back of the shop that the clothes finally appear a floor-to-ceiling library filled with carefully folded cashmere pieces. The effect is immediate, with no price tags to interrupt the contemplation.

extreme-cashmere-amsterdam-bibliotheque-cachemire-moquette-orange
extreme-cashmere-amsterdam-bibliotheque-cachemire-moquette-orange
extreme-cashmere-amsterdam-bibliotheque-cachemire-moquette-orange

A brand that refuses the cycles of fashion

Extreme Cashmere does not follow traditional seasons. No spring-summer collection, no autumn-winter collection. The brand produces timeless cashmere pieces, available continuously, designed to last. And its retail space is the living expression of that philosophy.

The absence of prices is not an oversight, it is a choice. You come here to touch, to feel, to take the time for a conversation with the sales team. The client relationship is considered, personalised, almost bespoke. This is far from transactional retail. This is relational retail.

Une marque qui refuse les cycles de la mode Extreme Cashmere ne suit pas les saisons traditionnelles. Pas de collection printemps-été, pas de collection automne-hiver. La marque produit des pièces en cachemire intemporelles, disponibles en continu, pensées pour durer. Et son espace de vente est à l'image de cette philosophie. L'absence de prix n'est pas un oubli mais un choix. On entre ici pour toucher, pour ressentir, pour prendre le temps d'une conversation avec le personnel de vente. Le contact client est travaillé, personnalisé, presque sur-mesure. On est loin du retail transactionnel. On est dans le retail de relation.
Une marque qui refuse les cycles de la mode Extreme Cashmere ne suit pas les saisons traditionnelles. Pas de collection printemps-été, pas de collection automne-hiver. La marque produit des pièces en cachemire intemporelles, disponibles en continu, pensées pour durer. Et son espace de vente est à l'image de cette philosophie. L'absence de prix n'est pas un oubli mais un choix. On entre ici pour toucher, pour ressentir, pour prendre le temps d'une conversation avec le personnel de vente. Le contact client est travaillé, personnalisé, presque sur-mesure. On est loin du retail transactionnel. On est dans le retail de relation.
Une marque qui refuse les cycles de la mode Extreme Cashmere ne suit pas les saisons traditionnelles. Pas de collection printemps-été, pas de collection automne-hiver. La marque produit des pièces en cachemire intemporelles, disponibles en continu, pensées pour durer. Et son espace de vente est à l'image de cette philosophie. L'absence de prix n'est pas un oubli mais un choix. On entre ici pour toucher, pour ressentir, pour prendre le temps d'une conversation avec le personnel de vente. Le contact client est travaillé, personnalisé, presque sur-mesure. On est loin du retail transactionnel. On est dans le retail de relation.

What this tells us about the future of retail

The most desirable brands are sometimes those with the courage to resemble no one else. No dazzling window display, no expected luxury codes simply a strong point of view, carried through to the smallest detail.

In a sector where so many boutiques look alike, the originality of a space becomes a brand argument in itself.

Retail tours have become essential for tracking trends, innovating and drawing inspiration. Lemens & Partners analyses global retail movements through the lens of your strategic challenges, observing what works elsewhere to help shape the retail of tomorrow.

We design and lead bespoke retail tours with our international experts. The field is an endless source of ideas.

Get in touch to organise your next retail tour.