IADS Exclusive: THAT Concept Store, Dubai

The IADS recently had the opportunity to visit THAT Concept store, located in the Mall of the Emirates, which represents a new breed of retail in a region dominated by malls and department stores. 

THAT Concept store, taking on many of the concept-store codes known elsewhere in the world, includes many of the recent innovations spotted here and there across the planet, often made by department store companies looking to reinvent themselves through smaller formats, acting as showrooms located closer to communities of customers. Interestingly enough, this concept store is owned and operated by the Majid-Al-Futtaim Group (MAF), which uses it both as a window of its retail savoir-faire and also as a testing ground for brands.

For all these reasons, we review our store visit below, in order to understand how a mall owner turned franchise operator is using a concept store to deepen its retail expertise in all formats and test brands for further expansion, and share learnings for department stores across the world, especially for the ones currently experimenting new formats.

IADS provides its members with a weekly in-depth analysis on retail-oriented topics. This is an example of the themes the Association regularly addresses, and the topic of an article from the IADS members-only newsletter date 05 July 2023.

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