What a show

Leroy Merlin is often seen as an - admittedly very large - group of DIY stores among many. However, particularly noticeable is its innovative spirit when it comes to sales types, which is demonstrated, for example, by new store formats in Paris.
A relatively new format is currently being tested in Portugal by the primary sales channel of Europe's DIY market leader Adeo. The market in the Lisbon Alfragide suburb initially looks like a "normal" Leroy Merlin which has been adapted to Portuguese conditions and customer requirements: you start with a lot of opulent interior decoration and are only led to the hard DIY range at the end of the customer walkway.
However, what is special about the store is the showroom which is reached one floor up via an escalator: a different world - in which it even smells different. Because in order to highlight the main theme of bathrooms and sanitary facilities - as well as kitchens and terraces - Leroy Merlin is working here with scent marketing and has everything smelling slightly of clean chlorinated water.
On the one side, bathrooms are shown, including their equipment, which are executed to an extremely high level of quality; the available showers are demonstrated using running water along a separate presentation wall. On the side of the escalator, the walkway goes to (brand) kitchens, fully equipped terraces and pools.

However the heart of showroom is the central consultation areal with four well-equipped digital stations. Here, the specially trained consultants plan projects together with their customers. They are what count: they are available by appointment, but their project customers can always reach them directly, for example by mobile phone.
So the DIY store downstairs and specialist trade standard upstairs? Not quite. The showroom is intended to provide inspiration using exemplarily designed presentations - but the customer also has access to the lower-priced assortments in the DIY store one floor down when planning, and possibly implementing, a project together with the showroom employees.
Such a showroom is also something special in the innovative realm of Leroy Merlin. The concept is currently still being tested in Italy; it hasn't even been introduced in the French motherland yet. The fact…