Panasonic Edinburgh
Edinburgh’s Panasonic Centre undergoes refit from Replan
Background
Edinburgh’s Camcorder Centre had been a well established specialist outlet in the City’s Haymarket area. Opened in 1990 to meet the growing demand for home video equipment, the business was well received and its success continued over a fifteen year period.
The last two years have seen sales decline for various reasons. The rise of the Internet has seen many people turning to the Web to purchase electrical goods. Also The Camcorder Centre had no changes to the major fittings in its seventeen year lifespan. Minor cosmetic alterations had been made, but these had now been exhausted and the shop looked tired.
The Refit
The Camcorder Centre entered into a business partnership with Panasonic, which meant embracing Panasonic’s business ethics and also embarking on a store refit. Panasonic has a collaboration with shopfitting specialist Replan and the two organisations have developed a template which has proved successful in other Panasonic stores.
Replan based the store designs on the template whilst including subtle touches and improvements to enhance this particular store. For example, a wall was removed giving an extra 6ft of shop floor and Replan streamlined the look of the store where before it was slightly disjointed.
The Outcome
Bill Forbes, owner and manager of the store said: “Replan forecast 3 weeks for the refit and it took exactly that. The finished store is better than I anticipated and our sales have dramatically increased since reopening a month ago. We’ve gained a lot of new business and quite a few customers have commented on how fantastic the store looks.
“The Panasonic template has been a great success and Replan constantly work on improving that template so that it doesn’t become static. The partnership between the two organisations is a great success.
The refit has also reinvigorated staff who are all excited about the new look and feel of their workplace. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Replan to anyone. They worked exactly to schedule, and professionally handled any obstacles that came up during the work.”
Justin Eaton, of Replan, commented: “Retail is constantly evolving and Replan works hard to deliver retail environments that are responsive to this. We’ve developed a successful template for Shop@Panasonic and by constantly revising this we ensure that our designs are always at the cutting edge.”
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