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Hamburg - Ich bin ein Hamburger
With a vibrant retail scene serving 1.8 million locals, Hamburg has a varied and cosmopolitan mix of stores, and as one of Germany's major transportation hubs, the airport retail scene is certainly one to frequent. Here, Karl McKeever, brand director of visual merchandising consultancy Visual Thinking, takes a visit to the city through Hamburg Airport to discover what travellers can expect.
Located around five miles to the north west of the city centre, Hamburg Airport has flights to 125 destinations by 60 major airlines. With convenient connections by national rail, underground and motorway access, it serves over 12.5 million passengers a year.
Sitting between the two new and upgraded airport terminal buildings is the shiny new Shopping Plaza, opened in December 2008. Now a common feature found in many international airports, here the retail area has a significant presence, spreading over seven floors, with approximately 4,500 sq m of space and 35 resident stores. These include the typical mix of duty free goods, designer treats, travel essentials, and small outlets of well-known high-street stores.
In recent years, many airport owners have sought to maximise the commercial potential of their properties. As such, revenue generating facilities such as food and beverage operations, car parking etc. and in particular retail, have all been reassessed with a view to increase sales and profits from the available terminal space (admittedly done under the guise of how this can improve the airport experience for travellers). As a result, there has been a visible up-scaling of retail activities in many airport locations; however, this has been achieved with only mixed success for passengers in reality.
Whilst it is unquestionably true that many travellers still need and enjoy airport shops, their role should be seen as part of a balanced approach, where the primary needs of the traveller are addressed in the first instance. In some airports, through the redevelopment of terminals, this has resulted in an encroachment of retail into the general airport space, affecting both the quantity and quality of essential space required for check-in and security.
In some locations the effect of this change in emphasis has been to increasingly funnel would-be travellers through their shopping experiences, almost without a choice, but before allowing access to the gate (think Heathrow T3 and the latest makeover of East Midlands Airport as examples where this approach has been pushed to an uncomfortable and unpleasant extreme). The redevelopment of Hamburg Airport, along with others such as BA's Terminal 5 has a seen a more appropriate and considered position for retailers within the overall mix of facilities.
The Hamburg Shopping Plaza is split over several levels and importantly, makes the clear distinction between when and how shoppers access these stores. Landside, there is a good choice, including a pharmacy, florist, a useful branch of Mycell for telecoms essentials, Relay Presse + Bucher for news and even a branch of Beate Uhse, the German adult play store chain, which is discretely located in a far flung corner.
But it's airside where the best choice of stores can be found. For those seeking duty free, Heinemann Duty Free has a large presence. This store is modern, attractive and well set out in clearly differentiated product zones, which is typical of the chain. With striking marketing campaigns, these feature key price points are realised by using oversized red Styrofoam lettering as focal point displays set within product groups. This makes an impactful welcome change to the more conventional use of POS driven promotional activity.
If it's fashion luxury goods you're after, there's a good choice to be found, including branches of Hermes, Hugo Boss, Etro, Lacoste, Burberry and Escada Sport. Each of these stores is fitted out with their latest global retail concepts, offering compact versions of their distinctive upmarket brand experiences. Noticeably, they still retain the quality of execution and service you'd find in their high-street stores. This is something that often quickly fails when brands simply become product outposts that are managed with less attention to detail or premium standards.
There's also a good range of mid-market fashion brands to choose from - Tom Tailor, Esprit, Paul & Shark, Marco O' Polo, Timberland and Tie Rack London for example. For accessories and gifts, travellers will find stores from Bulgari, Mont Blanc, Samsonite and Porsche Design. Like their designer fashion counterparts, these stores offer high quality retail experiences, however, here the smaller space found within the airport environment plays to their advantage, given the small scale of the product range shown.
Certainly few airport malls in reality compare to the breadth, quality or scale that can be found in local destinations, but Hamburg Sky World puts on a good show. And, one thing that certainly plays to its advantage is the ability for stores to trade unrestricted for seven days a week - something we take for granted in the UK.
So, if you are only transferring flights, it's a great place to while away time until you board your flight. But if you venture to the city, Hamburg is just as welcoming and a truly diverse and attractive German city.
Known as Germany's capital of sport through its number of major league football teams, there's also a strong culture that runs through the city with art, museums, music and theatre, all competing for centre stage. There's a lively calendar of festivals and events, both social and professional, going on all year round. As such, tourism plays a major part in the life of the city, which helps to sustain the wide range of retail opportunities that are on offer.
Hamburg's history as a port city means it has a merchant heritage. This comes to life through nine major shopping malls and unique districts. The least expensive shopping streets are found on Spitalstrasse and Mönckebergstrasse, the latter being Hamburg's traditional shopping district. Here, the main shopping central area kicks off at one end with a huge branch of German electronics chain Saturn.
This six-floor mega-destination store demonstrates the familiar and typical expertise of the chain. Each floor is dedicated to a different technology type, whether for domestic appliances, small electricals, home entertainment or communications. Even for people not interested in electricals, it's hard to not be impressed by the choice of leading brands and products and the quality of the retail experience.
In my opinion, Saturn, along with sister company Media Markt, are the European specialists and trail-blazers in this sector. And whilst much has been made of the imminent arrival of American chain Best Buy to the UK in coming months, I for one hope that Media Markt / Saturn will enter the market too. Only then will the current stranglehold by established UK retailers with their dominance and all too often mediocre shopping experiences, be challenged and ultimately forced to comprehensively raise their game to benefit shoppers in store.
After leaving the vastness of Saturn, the rest of the street takes on more earthly proportions where you can find a good range of European and UK fashion, accessories and home brands, perhaps being noticeably a little light on US retailers. You'll also find big department stores, such as Karstadt and Kaufhof. More fashionable and upmarket is Alsterhaus, which has compared favourably to New York's famous Bloomingdale's. There are new branches of Adidas, Fossil, Calvin Klein Jeans, Accessorise and H&M to name a few and each store brings its distinctive, tried and tested retail format to the area.
A chic and youthfully fashionable shopping area can also be found in Hamburg's oldest village, Eppendorf. In the district from Klosterstern to Eppendorfer Markt, there are exclusive boutiques with designer fashions, along with independent shops selling antiques, homewares and places where you can watch goldsmiths, milliners, potters and weavers at work before buying something unique.
In general, stores are open Mondays to Fridays from 9:00am to 6:30pm, with some open until 8:00pm on Thursdays. Saturdays are typical from 9:00am to 2:00pm, or until 4:00pm or 6:00pm on langer Samstag - the first Saturday of the month. But if you're using the airport, you can shop until your heart's content, but you'll certainly need a boarding pass to take advantage of the goodies on offer!