Samenvatting

According to CBS (2017), over the last ten years the number of physical shops declined by 5 percent. In the meantime, the number of web shops were fivefold (CBS, 2017). Now, due to the declining of shops and the increasing of online sales it is now even more important to have a good store environment especially those who are new on the Dutch market. One of the new retailers, on the Dutch market is; Jo Malone London. Now, in a preliminary survey it became apparent that the brand Jo Malone London is unknown to a substantial part of their potential target group, which is consumers from 25 to 45 years old. In addition, they are not familiar with the products and services of Jo Malone London. Because of this reason, this study was focused on improving the boutique environment of the British lifestyle brand Jo Malone
London. Hence, the research question of this study is as follows: “How can Jo Malone London improve their boutique environment?”
It follows that, different theories about a store environment are presented in the second chapter: 2. Theoretical Framework. In addition, the best theory for this research was chosen and an operationalization table was made in order to create the questions for the questionnaire. What is more, this chapter answered the first sub-question of this research: What are the characteristics of a good store environment?
Furthermore, the questionnaire was distributed in the two Jo Malone London boutiques in Rotterdam and in total 131 consumers participated. The results of the questionnaire were presented in chapter 4. Results and has led to answer the second sub-question of this research; which is as follows: How does the target group of Jo Malone London experience its shop environment?
Now, the research question of the study was answered due to the results of the sub-questions. Moreover, it is concluded that changes should be made regarding the store atmospherics; store communication and the exterior and interior store design. Finally, the following recommendations were given: play jazz music in-store; provide an in-store scent; improve the cleanliness of the store; provide a pet-friendly image; make the current store sign more visible;
make the shopping windows more attractive; place the product displays in sight and create more space at the waiting line.