SimplyBe Blog

Fitting rooms getting fabber: Retail chain installs luxury fitting room area for the ultimate shopping experience

Plus-sized retailer Simply Be opened its first stores in Liverpool and Bury this month, with the aim of giving customers the ultimate shopping experience. Simply Be has made sure that their fitting room area is extra spacious – and extra fabulous, as one of the least fun parts of clothes shopping for customers of all sizes is having to struggle in cramped and crowded changing rooms. Luxurious velvet sofas give friends and partners a restful place to wait, while the spacious changing rooms and boudoir feel make for a much more relaxed and enjoyable shopping experience. Mini blackboards on each changing room door can be chalked up with the name of the customer, adding a personalised touch.

Simply Be undertook some research that revealed that shoppers don’t want to have to leave the changing rooms and then queue all over again at the tills, so they have installed a till in the changing room area. This means that shoppers can pop straight from the changing room to the till, making for a smoother shopping experience.

One of the most exciting features of the changing room area is the Magic Mirror. This allows shoppers to take photos of themselves in their outfits, which they can then share to Facebook and Twitter to show their friends how fab they look, or email to themselves if they want to keep a copy their favourite pic. When you look good – you want to share it with as many people as possible!

Fuller figure mannequins in store reflect the average size of a UK woman – a size 16, whilst the curvy store staff have been trained to be experts in fitting and truly enhance the shopping experience with their friendly approach.

There is currently extremely little choice for fashionable plus size women on the high street – but Simply Be are out to change this. Parent company JD Williams/ N Brown had until now sold its clothing through catalogues and the internet because, like any number of home shopping companies, that was its business model. In fact, in 1882 Mr James David Williams was the very first person to make use of the UK’s parcel post service, to send his company’s products direct to his customers, in what could well have been the invention of home shopping.

Chief executive Alan White said yesterday: ‘In the last few days we have opened Simple Be stores in Liverpool One and at The Rock in Bury. These stores are aiming to give Simply Be’s current and potential customers a better shopping experience.
‘We will be monitoring the results with a keen interest. Initial responses from customers have been very positive but it is early days.’

White tells how one of his online customers actually burst into tears after visiting the Bury store because it had been so long since she was able to have a positive experience shopping for fashion on the high street.

According to initial findings by independent market research company RDSI, 97% of visitors would recommend the store to a friend, 98% thought the changing rooms better than other stores, and 90% thought the store was better than their current favourite clothing/footwear store.

Simply Be is all about loving your curves and being proud of who you are. Now Simply Be are proud to be on the high street – and their customers are definitely proud to be seen in their glamorous new stores. There are plans for five more stores in 2012.