Case Study
Outdoor & Cycle Concepts
The Opportunity
As the UK’s largest outdoor retailer, O&CC, home to Snow+Rock, Cotswold Outdoor, and Runners Need saw an opportunity to bring its three well known high street brands together through a single, integrated store concept. The organization needed clarity on the role of the store, its purpose, and the end to end customer experience, while also addressing key logistical and operational challenges across a complex, multi brand environment.
The Solution
Principle created an experience vision called “The Base Camp,” a unifying retail concept designed to activate O&CC’s mission to “inspire and support people to actively get outside.” This vision connected with three shared customer mindsets, Outdoor Active, Challenger, and Perfectly Curated, ensuring the physical environment resonated across all brands.
We developed exhaustive planograms to support core propositions including click and collect, endless aisle browsing, and bookable fittings or repairs. To deepen engagement, digital windows and shelf edge messaging featured QR codes that linked to product information, hiking maps, and trail content.
The store design emphasized year round adaptability, with modular signage, removable fixtures, and flexible staging to support seasonal shifts and brand takeovers, critically important in a category where gear needs dramatically change from Spring/Summer to Autumn/Winter. The outcome was a set of actionable experience propositions designed to support extraordinary customer journeys for any need, at any time of year.
Our Impact
The first fully integrated O&CC store launched in Aberdeen, Scotland, delivered on time, within budget, and with seamless coordination from concept through execution. With a scalable model now in place, the new retail concept has rolled out across multiple UK locations, laying the foundation for a cohesive, future ready outdoor retail experience nationwide.
