Experiential Retail Pop-Up Concept in South London
Clients:
Hammerson plc (Owner of Croydon Centrale Shopping Centre)
The Future Collective (Creative Agency)
Client Needs at a Glance:
Revitalize Croydon Centrale as a retail destination through unique, engaging experiences that encourage longer visits
Build trust with the local community by ensuring retail offerings are tailored to local preferences and needs
My Role: Co-Project Manager & Visual Design Lead
Led project planning and facilitated cross-functional teamwork
Guided collaborative workshops to develop personas and map customer journeys
Designed a mobile app to enhance and personalize the in-store experience, seamlessly integrating with 3D store layouts
Produced mood boards, concept boards, and marketing mockups to align stakeholders and inspire the creative vision
Key Tools:
Miro for project planning | Figma for mood boarding & mobile app design | SketchUp for 3D store design
EMPATHIZE
Aligning with customer needs
DESIGN
Aligning with chosen retailer’s visual language
Designing the “phygital” retail experience
Selecting The Right Customer
How we researched ✍️
We immersed ourselves in the daily rhythms of Croydon Centrale through:
2 Field Observations to compare consumer traffic on weekday vs. weekend
22 Contextual Consumer Interviews in and around Croydon Centrale
3 Retailer Interviews with H&M, House of Fraser, and Superdrug
Secondary Research on the demographics of Croydon residents
What we found 💡
Families —especially those with young children—consistently made up the majority of visitors
There is a gap in Croydon’s current retail offering: young families struggle to find engaging, family-friendly experiences
Croydon is a diverse, creative community with a strong preference for fresh, locally relevant experiences
Thus, we zeroed in on one consumer group in particular – families with young children.
Selecting the Right Retailer
Aligning with What Matters Most 🔑
Our research made it clear:
Families like Samantha’s value affordability, family-friendly experiences, and sustainable choices. These priorities guided our retailer selection.
Finding the Perfect Fit ✨
First, we filtered out familiar big-name brands (e.g. Lush, The Body Shop), which already had a retail presence nearby and lacked novelty and sustainability.
Then, we set aside niche names (e.g. Odylique, Bloomtown) that felt too unfamiliar for local families.
This led us to Faith in Nature – a trusted, UK-based brand known for accessible, natural skincare. Their values and product range aligned with what our core audience seeks: value, family-focus, and sustainability.
Spotting the Gap 🕳️
A walk through Centrale and conversations with Superdrug staff revealed a commercial gap:
Centrale had a crowded landscape of mainstream drugstore beauty brands, but it lacks dedicated skincare stores with affordable skincare products made from natural ingredients.
Understanding Our Customer
Samantha is more than just a shopper – she’s a young mother looking for moments of discovery, connection, and ease in her busy day.
Her visits to Croydon Centrale are shaped by a few common threads:
She craves novelty
Family comes first
Community matters
Value and convenience are key
Aligning with Customer Needs
Curating Relevant Retail Trends
How we researched ✍️
50+ industry articles & reports (e.g. BoF, LS:N Global, Raconteur)
Extensive visual research (e.g. WGSN, Behance, Shop Drop Daily)
What we found 💡
To create a pop-up experience that resonates with families like Samantha’s and aligns with Faith in Nature’s brand, we selected four key trends to guide our experience design.
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(Aligning with Samantha’s need for novelty)
Inspiring discovery and strengthening brand personality through interactive, narrative-driven spaces
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(Aligning with Samantha’s need for community engagement)
Designing the store as a welcoming community hub to foster conversations, connections, and a sense of belonging
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(Aligning with Samantha’s need for family-friendly experiences)
Creating playful, family-friendly touchpoints that make shopping easier and more enjoyable for parents and kids -
(Aligning with Faith in Nature’s brand image and visual language)
Bringing nature in, blurring indoor and outdoor boundaries, and promoting well-being through biophilic design
Ideating Engagement Opportunities
Based on our 22 contextual interviews, We mapped out Samatha’s journey of entering a new beauty and skincare store at Centrale for the first time. This deeper understanding coupled with our previously identified retail trends allowed us to brainstorm opportunities for marketing strategy, service innovation, and retail design.
Through our Customer Journey Map, we discovered numerous opportunities across service innovation and retail store design that we incorporated to inform our general design mood board (left) and proposed floor plan (right).
For our design proposal, we made sure to leverage the following characteristics of Faith in Nature:
Playful brand visuals and personality
Focus on sustainability (Refill, Reuse, Recycle)
Focus on natural, organic ingredients
Designing a mobile application that facilitates seamless customer experiences with the different in-store touch points
Design Goals
As part of our proposal, I designed a mobile application for Faith in Nature, called In Nature. It is designed to encompass traditional mobile e-commerce and omnichannel retail functionalities that can remain beyond the pop-up activation, while it also has unique functionalities that serve to complement our physical store touch points. It aims to fulfil the following goals:
Wireframes
Providing additional convenience and educational value
Facilitating customer interactions with in-store technologies (e.g. QR codes for product info, QR codes for drinks ordering , event management tablet for in-store workshops)
Building strong consumer connections and loyalty towards Faith in Nature
How does this mobile app complement each consumer touch point in-store?
Place for photo carousel
Final Prototype: In Nature
Embark on a journey with our persona, Samantha, on her delightful visit to our pop-up store!
This demo video showcases the key user interactions that were designed to help Samantha and her son achieve an optimised in-store and omnichannel brand experience with Faith in Nature.
“PodKST is a viable and highly adaptable extension of our current business model. It accurately grasped at the core of our mission in connecting local communities.”
— Joseph Hall, Executive Director of Kelly Strayhorn Theatre