Image Credit : Andrew Rankin
Project Overview
The BCF flagship store is the largest outdoors store in the Southern hemisphere, sitting at 5,500 square metres – double its original size – and packed with 29,000 SKUs. At every corner, we’ve created interactive experiences to bring those products to life.
BCF’s immersive flagship store is the biggest shake-up in its 17-year-history. Townsville is the retailer’s first ever superstore and there are more new developments to come in the future.
Inspired by the great outdoors, the sprawling retail space is a mecca for boating, camping and fishing. The customer experience of each category has been reimagined in a playful, creative, and highly considered way, including a purpose-built bait shack, a spacious campground, an elevated hiking space and 4WDs, caravans and boats staged throughout. Sustainable fixtures bring the store to life, including repurposed shipping pallets, natural timbers and landscaping.
The Townsville store was already BCF’s best performing store in the country, but since the redesign was unveiled, sales are now up by 160 per cent – and continue to climb. It has well and truly exceeded our client’s expectations. They have experienced extraordinary results across all categories with triple digit growth across the store and up to 300% in key focus areas.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Paul Morrison - Project Lead
Myles O'Keefe - Design
Meiny Lim - Design Lead
Reid Nakou - Creative Leadership
Danny Lattouf - Strategy
Project Brief
If BCF is all about BCFn’ fun, then our job was to create a giant BCFn’ playground – an experiential superstore dedicated to adventure and the great outdoors in Townsville, Queensland.
BCF’s 5,500-sqm experiential superstore is the largest in the retailer’s network, showcasing the largest range of outdoor products in the Southern Hemisphere.
Since it opened its doors last year, the flagship store has performed over and above our client’s expectations.
Paul Bradshaw, BCF Managing Director: “The General Store walks in the customer’s shoes and they challenged us. Delivering quality, value and service is at the heart of what we do at BCF – and The G Store has done that in spades.”
Project Innovation/Need
BCF’s Townsville flagship store is a temple to the great outdoors and we’ve created moments of retail theatre throughout.
The new fishing workshop is all about engaging their customers one-on-one. While a customer’s reel is being respooled, they can pull up a seat at the bar and chat with the team, surrounded by Australia’s greatest range of rods and lures.
A major part of the store design was to create opportunities for customers to interact with products, understand how they work in real-life scenarios and see them in action. There’s a fully kitted out 4x4, caravan and boat in the superstore, ready for customers to step in and engage. We’ve added every possible feature to help customers experience and test the product. For example, there are eskies sitting on real ute trays, along with wine bottles and Coke cans so customers can understand the real life application of the product.
Another feature is a new 200sqm marketplace, where the community is invited on the weekends to engage with activations from BCF’s vendor partners.
BCF’s superstore is on Wulgurukaba Country and as part of its Reconciliation Action Plan, the retailer worked closely with the local Indigenous community on the development of the store. Behind the front counter is a beautiful mural of a rainbow serpent from local Waanyi artist Stephen Oliver Sailor, which reflects his belief that all people have a role to play in caring for the natural environment.
Design Challenge
Our ambition was to create a better canvas for BCF’s exceptional product assortment. Back in 2019 when BCF conducted research, customers were asking for a much broader product range. At that point, the brand only had 8,000 SKUs. The superstore now proudly showcases 29,000 SKUs.
However, increasing the SKU count even in a large format space is very risky, as it may overwhelm the customer and slow down the purchase process. We also noted through our research that shopping at big box retailers can be time-consuming and exhausting. Part of our design intent was to create less cognitive blur and give customers the opportunity to consume each category independently, with more time and energy to shop with confidence. As a result, we created an immersive world made up of “neighbourhoods” with clear signage, so that each product category has its own home, making it easy for shoppers to enjoy but to also navigate and transition from one to the other.
One of the key design principles in our work was to simplify and clean up the experience, while injecting the BCF tone of voice and brand in complementary ways across the customer journey.
Sustainability
The new BCF superstore demonstrates an increased focus on sustainability, featuring solar panels capable of generating 401 kilowatts of clean energy on the roof, as well as a commitment to low-impact cleaning products. Even the t-shirts that team members wear are made from recycled plastic bottles. Recyclable materials were also used throughout our store, such as the wooden pallets that played an integral part within our design.
Interior Design - Flagships & Showrooms
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to flagship, discovery centers or showroom space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes and aesthetic presentation. Consideration given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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