Bicycle retailer Giant is an international brand with stores in more than 50 countries.
So when the company decided to open a flagship store in a prominent central London location, it was essential that the result be something special.
Whiteroom, Giant’s design agency, was responsible for the design, manufacture and installation of the newly-opened St Paul’s store, which measures 11,000 square feet and has 160 bicycles on display.
Jon Wetherell, Director of Whiteroom, said: “We wanted to make shopping for a bicycle a pleasurable experience, a lot like going to a car showroom.
“You’re going to spend a lot of money on a bike and you want to be able to see it and look at it, not pulling it out from all the other bikes in a narrow aisle like so many other bike shops.”
Whiteroom has designed 12 UK Giant stores in the last four years and specifies international vinyl flooring specialist Gerflor for Giant’s retail flooring project needs.
Mr Wetherell explained: “The first store we designed in Liverpool was in an old building and it had timber floorboards. We wanted the next store in Bristol to replicate that look, but wood can be expensive and takes longer to fit. The shopfitters, 3Sixty Displays, had worked with Gerflor before, so we looked at the LVT Creation range and found exactly what we were looking for.
“We’ve used Gerflor in every store since then for consistency, but also because it’s a great product with a 10-year guarantee, easy to install, clean and maintain.”
Paul Butler, Director at 3Sixty Displays, said the decision to choose vinyl over wood was simple. He explained: “Vinyl is cheaper than wood and it’s a more practical choice; vinyl will go on uneven floors, it’s easier to transport, the fitting’s faster and there’s no need to varnish and stain it every year.”
He added: “On top of that Gerflor has excellent customer service and they bend over backwards to get it right.”
Giant divides its retail offer into several categories and Whiteroom used the LVT Creation collection’s sophisticated palette of 89 realistic wood and mineral finishes with an array of formats, grains and colours to create different themes and areas within the St Paul’s store to make it more attractive to customers.
He said: “Creation offers plenty of choice to create different moods in different parts of the store. For example, we used Creation Halifax for a slate effect for the off-road area, and we used Creation Ocean Side, which looks like whitewashed planks, for contrasting flooring in the new women’s-specific area.”
With more than 70 years’ experience of being at the forefront of design-led development, Gerflor’s Creation range gives the appearance of effortless style, yet is low-maintenance and tough enough to withstand heavy traffic wear.
After providing dozens of LVT samples to help the client visualise the concept, the client specified the wood plank effect Creation Lawson and Creation Ocean Side and the tile effect Creation Halifax and Creation East Village for the different retail areas within the store, plus Classic Imperial for the staff areas.
Finally, in an innovative twist, Creation Dark Slate was specified for the wall behind the pay counter. Jon Wetherell, Director of Whiteroom, said: “It’s seven metres long by three metres high and it’s the backdrop for a stainless steel company logo, which is illuminated from behind by LED lighting - it looks fantastic.”
