Primark has teamed up with Greggs to transform the fashion retailer’s flagship store in Birmingham, opening a new café experienceas it attempts to bring back footfall with an Insta-friendly ’doughnut swing’.
‘Tasty by Greggs’ was opened to the public on Saturday 12 February at 8am, with commercial fit-out specialist Novograf aiding in the creation of the elevated café using unparalleled interior and exterior design. The centrepiece in the 130-seater café, is a sugar-strand doughnut swing that is perfect for Instagram reels.
The ‘Tasty by Greggs’ café experience starts at the entrance. Located at the mezzanine level of Birmingham’s Primark store, an escalator and a lift covered graphics lead to the Greggs café. There, a range of Greggs favourites, such as sausage rolls and sweet treats, will welcome visitors, who can then shop the Greggs-themed exclusive Primark collection.
The large-scale Greggs café is unlike any other store as it features a picnic area, a refillable water station, and a self-serve coffee cart offering freshly brewed hot drinks for those who wish to skip the queue. Yet Greggs’ identity and products are still underpinning the café’s design.
Ross Campbell, Digital Business Development Manager at Novograf, explains: “This is the first of its kind Greggs experiential café, which takes into account the latest commercial design trends and the new-age customer journey. We are excited to be stepping to the forefront of innovative design and providing an all-immersive, omnichannel customer experience.”
Primark is wedded to physical retail and the opening of the new experience store comes just weeks after the company announced the upcoming launch of a new customer-facing website. The non-transactional site, which will show more of its products than its previous site, will also show product availability by store. It will be available in Primark’s other markets by the autumn.
The move comes as Primark parent company Associated British Foods (ABF) reports that sales at the value fashion retailer – which only sells through stores – came in at £2.7bn in the 16 weeks to January 8. That’s a third (+32%) higher than in last year’s comparison period, the 16 weeks to January 2 2021, on a like-for-like basis that strips out the effect of store openings and last year’s pandemic lockdown closures. But total sales were 5% lower than the same period in pre-pandemic 2019/20 and LFL sales were 11% behind.
