Retail Shops Design & Fit-out

The Royal Armouries is looking to fullt refresh its gift shop at Leeds and incorporate element of this refresh into its shop at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth to enhance the proposition there and create unity between the two shops.

Having been in place since the site opened in 1998 the shop at Leeds is still by and large using the same furniture and fitting that it launched with. The shop was originally designed in a traditional book shop library style with brown shelving units, ideal for merchandising books. While books are still an important component of the product range we now need more variety and flexibility in our fixtures to allow for the creation of more impactful displays and merchandising across a wide variety of product. A portion of work on the shop took place last year when a new wood floor was installed and the painted areas where re-painted; in addition to this a new ePos system and tills where installed. to this a sound system was installed in 2012.

While the gift shop at Leeds would be considered large in the context of museum gift shops in general, the shop at Fort Nelson is a fraction of the size.The gift shop at Fort Nelson is located in the visitor centre and shares this space with the café and toilets for the site. The visitor centre was built as part of an HLF project on the Fort Nelson site which opened in August 2011. The aesthetics of how the shop is presented with being situated in the visitor centre is a key issue that our shop designers will need to tackle.

The Fort Nelson shop comprises of three main types of display units. Along the external curved wall there are nine fixed display bays. These are made from a light coloured beech wood and each has a slat wall back with glass shelves that can be positioned on brackets as required. The bottom section of these units are lockable for stock storage. Two floor standing beech wood units which have adjustable sections, two glass display units, two book spinner units and a postcard spinner make up Fort Nelson complement of retail units; there is a higher quantity and variety of unit in the Leeds shop.

It should be noted that, where possible, we are looking to upcycle our existing fixtures and fittings to reduce the cost of the refresh and limit the environmental impact.

Aims of the refresh - To increase conversion and income; To create a fully immersive and engaging customer experience; To advertise that the shop supports the museum, our other commercial areas and services; To more closely align the Leeds and Fort Nelson gift shops and improve accessibility and customer service.

A full refresh design for the Royal Armouries Leeds shop. A partial redesign of the Royal Armouries Fort Nelson shop, to transfer some of the key elements from Leeds refresh to here.We are happy to consider proposals that split this brief between two separate companies, one for design and one for fit out. All quotations received should quote these two elements separately.