This is how Selfridges embraces the "New Normal"

British Selfridges feels the pressure of changing behaviour in post-Covid consumers to focus on sustainability. The chain introduces clothing rental and repair as well as trials in the food sector, such as growing its own vegetables.

Experimenteren

‘Project Earth’ is the name of the chain’s ambitious five-year plan with which Selfridges is aiming for younger consumers, who want sustainable food solutions and are willing to pay for them. In collaboration with 300 brands, the retailer is going to start trials to find out how it can reinvent certain retail models.

Some trials include the use of sustainable materials, such as organic cotton or nylon made from waste found in oceans. In five years’ time, Selfridges hopes to be able to use no unsustainable materials at all any more. The plastics it still uses by than should all be recyclable or reusable.

In its Oxford Street store, an in-store greenhouse will produce the vegetables and herbs to be sold in the store: this would mean a 95 % reduction in water, a 90 % reduction in transport and a 75 % reduction in fertilisers. In another trial, second-hand platform Resellfridges, shoppers can buy vintage clothing and sell their old clothes to the store. In combination with the Hurr Collective, the chain will even offer a clothing rental service.

Transparent business

Managing director Anne Pitcher told The Guardian that demand for sustainable products has been boosted by Covid-19, claiming that the pandemic has forever altered what customers want. This includes, according to her, a wide variety of evolutions that go beyond just the shift of offline shopping towards e-commerce: “I think [consumers] will shop with businesses that they trust, that they know care, businesses that they feel are their friends or that they can relate to, businesses that choose doing the right thing over making money, and businesses who are transparent in the way they do business”, the Guardian quotes Pitcher.

Selfridges is not the only retailer that finds the growing market for clothing rental music to its ears: John Lewis has recently launched a furniture rental service and is to open a second-hand marketplace soon. Ikea is launching a similar initiative and in the world of fashion, H&M is testing a fashion rental service in Stockholm.