Expert advice and support.

Myer hires in-store gift experts to help consumers with gift ideas, offer guidance and a wrapping service to take the stress out of Christmas shopping. Myer executive general manager of stores, Tony Sutton spoke to Appliance Retailer about the all-important gift-giving season and the department store’s plans for this year.

This Christmas will be the third year of Myer’s Giftorium concept, which brings together the best gift giving ideas from across the globe. In previous years, the department store has invited a selection of brands to set up their own pop-up shops in selected Myer stores with in-store displays and personalisation stands.

Sutton said this year the Myer Giftorium is going to be bigger and better than ever with more brands in store and more brands offering personalisation.

“We believe personalisation will continue to be popular for Christmas gift giving in 2016. Customer favourites, such as personalised Nutella jars (which sold 420,000 units in the lead-up to Christmas last year) and Build a Bear, will be part of our Christmas offering, but we have many more brands we are keeping under wraps until our Christmas campaign is launched,” he explained.

Myer is working on a Christmas theme and will work closely with suppliers to ensure their promotions not only tie in with the campaign, but enhance and elevate the Christmas shopping experience.

“For our part, everything from our styling, visual merchandising, window displays, to our Giftorium uniforms and entertainment will be themed to tie back to our campaign. We are confident we have got the wow factor in our customer’s Christmas shopping experience this year,” he said.

When asked about Christmas trends, Sutton noted that the biggest trend is the sheer volume of customers who are keen to be part of the Christmas shopping experience.

“We think this is because we bring the love of Christmas to life. While many customers know exactly what they are after, we will have dedicated team members on hand to help make those selections easier.

“Myer plans to be the leader in the field this year in terms of our fantastic standout Christmas campaign. We have been very busy checking our customer’s lists and making sure we have all the wanted brands in store,” he said.

Myer Tony Sutton