Design for Future Retailing:An investigation into the Changing Status of City-based Retailers in the UK

This paper forms part of an on-going research project to critically examine how designenable city-based retailers to find new business opportunities through understandingtransforming consumer behaviour patterns and its mutual relationship with citylifestyle transformations. In relation to the threat of declining physical retail storeclosures and the importance of those retailers towards city orientated socialinteractions, design and design thinking has been identified as the strategic tool tobridge current circumstances with possible future scenarios, which could achievebusiness innovation and long-term sustainable success. The primary method of datacollection was achieved through public online review data and primary observationalanalysis with selected six retail outlets in this study to identify and examine howdesign is currently being utilised by retailers in their pursuit of innovation and newbusiness models. This study categorised four aspects that demonstrated the values ofdesign for retailers which are design for product innovation; design for in-storeatmosphere creation and services; design for enhance multidimensional interactions;and design for add social and emotional value. Further work will be through collectingmore detailed and qualitative research data to explore ways that design thinking canbe used to identify latent customer needs