Benetton Closes Its Oxford Street Flagship: Set-Dressing Visual Merchandising No Longer Sells

On 19 October, Retail Gazette reported that United Colors of Benetton had closed its flagship at 89 Oxford Street, London. The store the brand launched in 2018 as «the ultimate brand experience» bows out with a paper sign taped to the glass: clearance up to 70% off, «shop online at benetton.com» and «Back soon in London». Eight years of LED arches, touchscreen tables and a lounge full of design magazines, summed up on a single sheet. So let me ask, with all the love in the world: what was all that LED actually for?

I’m not here to dance on anyone’s grave. Benetton hasn’t publicly explained the closure and it is in the middle of a restructuring. I’m here to talk about a habit I’ve watched this industry indulge for more than 25 years: mistaking visual merchandising for set dressing. Spending the budget on making the store impressive and assuming that, if it impresses, it will sell. Because that same week, a figure came out that sums it up better than any opinion of mine: stores score 93% on presentation and 37% on closing the sale.

What the Oxford Street flagship was (and why in 2018 it looked like the future)

It opened on 15 March 2018, next to Tottenham Court Road station. According to Benetton Group’s press release and Design Week, it covered around 1,500 square metres over three floors linked by a loop staircase, designed by the brand’s own retail design department. Outside, a counter-facade of 12-metre arches clad in LED screens showing content from Fabrica, Benetton’s creative centre. Inside, wood, iron and stone, a lounge with books and design magazines, touchscreen tables to browse the full collection, and a «knitwear theatre» where staff presented the knitwear that made the brand famous. The company itself said the store went «beyond the traditional idea of a shop».

The awkward part: some of the ideas were very good

I have to be honest here, because the easy thing would be to laugh at the LED and move on. That project had two decisions I argue for in every audit: a space where store staff explain the hero product, and payment points spread across the floor instead of a till with a queue at the back. On paper, it was a flagship designed to sell. And it has still closed. That’s the lesson that interests me: design proposes, but product, team, footfall and rent dispose. A spectacular store doesn’t make up for a brand losing revenue. It just makes it more expensive to keep open.

A flagship is not a business plan

Benetton’s numbers, per Retail Gazette: revenue of £689 million in 2025, down 13% on the year before, and a net loss of £29 million, against £87 million in 2024 and £204 million in 2023. CEO Claudio Sforza, in the job since June 2024, is shrinking the store network, cutting ties with underperforming wholesale and franchise partners and simplifying the business to get back to break-even in 2026. The brand is improving its numbers by dropping dead weight. And a three-floor flagship store on London’s most expensive street is a lot of dead weight if sales don’t pay the rent.

It isn’t a one-off. On the same street, HMV will leave its store in March 2027 after the landlord proposed doubling the rent and demanded substantial investment in the building, and that, the retailer says, «despite strong sales growth». Oxford Street no longer forgives square metres that are only there to be looked at. And look at the farewell sign: «shop online». When the flagship goes, the brand stays on the website. If your physical store doesn’t do something the website can’t, nobody misses it the day it closes.

Screens stop people. They don’t convert them

Read the list again: 12-metre LED arches, touchscreen tables, lounge. It’s the 2018 flagship shopping list. We all built it, we all sold it, we all got into the magazines. The trouble with a screen is that it stops you on the pavement and then asks you nothing. No touchscreen table knows what occasion the jumper is for, or fetches the size that’s missing. A person does that. And people are the first budget line cut once the store has already spent its money on impressing.

93% on looks, 37% on closing: the fail nobody wants to see

On 20 October, Infobae published the Retail Barometer from Clientes Anónimos, a mystery shopping firm working in Peru: 365 evaluations across 45 brands in ten categories, from fashion and footwear to beauty, tech and department stores. On presentation and image, stores pass with flying colours: 93%. On the welcome they drop to 70%. On identifying what the customer needs, 59%. And on closing and farewell they collapse to 37%. Translation: in more than six out of ten visits, the store lets the customer walk out without closing the sale.

It isn’t Benetton and it isn’t London: it’s another market, with its own sample and method, and I won’t sell it as universal truth. But anyone who has run mystery shopping in Europe will recognise the curve. The store looks gorgeous. Nobody serves you. Jairo Ortiz, the firm’s head of operations, puts it bluntly: «A sale we don’t close is money we lose.»

Visual merchandising that gets looked at, not bought

Here’s the trap. We’ve turned visual merchandising into an aesthetic discipline when it was born as a commercial tool. A good planogram isn’t pretty: it’s legible. A table isn’t well dressed because it’s symmetrical, but because the customer understands in three seconds what’s there, what it costs and what it goes with. If your customer experience ends at the photo, your conversion rate will feel it. So will your P&L.

What actually works: designing the last metre

If the window display is the promise, the last metre is where you get paid: the counter, the fitting room, the till, the conversation. And it’s exactly the space we design worst. Eduardo Martín Cardona, who ran Zara Spain for more than a decade, said it this week in Merca2: results depend on the people who place, explain and sell the product. He didn’t say «on the screens». It isn’t about having more square metres, but about making every one of them work.

Three changes you can make this month

One: measure what matters. Footfall, conversion rate and average transaction value, by hour. These are the store KPIs that tell you whether your store design is working or just decorating. Two: design conversation zones, like that knitwear theatre, but with a real person in it all day: spots where staff can approach without crowding, with product to hand and somewhere to set it down. Three: stop treating payment as a chore at the back of the store. Spreading it across the floor, as Benetton did, is a good idea; leaving the till as the corner for bags and cables isn’t.

«But without a spectacular flagship you’re nobody»

I can hear it already. Massimo Dutti is opening flagships in Rome, Milan, New York’s SoHo and Shanghai, and its first-half sales rose from €895 million to €988 million, according to WWD. The same week one Italian brand closes its big London store, another fashion brand opens new ones. Doesn’t that prove flagships work?

It proves something else. A flagship works when it’s the consequence of a business that already sells, not the cure for one that doesn’t. A big store doesn’t hide problems: it amplifies them. If there’s product, operations and people holding up every metre behind it, the spectacular space multiplies. If there’s falling revenue behind it, the LED just makes the problem more visible. And more expensive.

Self-criticism: we visual merchandisers sell set dressing too

Now, the mirror. Those of us in visual merchandising and retail design carry a lot of the blame. We get paid for impact, rewarded for the photo, and we present projects with renders where a sales associate never appears. We defend the LED facade to the client because it shows, and leave staffing until last because it isn’t in the render. We design gallery-stores where you feel awkward touching a garment. Then we’re surprised when the customer looks, takes the picture and leaves.

A serious store design project starts by asking how many sales that space has to close, who is going to close them and how much rent each metre has to pay. If we can’t answer, we’re not designing a store. We’re decorating a lease.

Less set dressing, more selling

The Oxford Street closure isn’t just news about Benetton. It’s a warning to any store, big or local, that has invested more in impressing than in converting. Walk your shop floor with a single question: does every metre help close a sale, or just take a photo?

If you want fresh customer eyes on it, the Phygital Retail Audit from my Consultancy reviews window, customer journey, selling zones and website, and leaves you a priority report. If it’s time to redesign, at the BARRONVISUAL Studio we design stores that sell from the pavement to the till. And if you want your team to learn to sell with the space, there’s the Academy. Questions? Book a 20-minute Diagnostic with me.

Your turn: how much did you invest this year in making your store look good, and how much in someone closing the sale? Tell me in the comments.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Benetton close its Oxford Street flagship?

Benetton hasn’t publicly confirmed the reason. The closure comes mid-restructuring, with revenue down 13% in 2025 and a plan to cut stores and return to break-even in 2026, according to Retail Gazette.

What was Benetton’s Oxford Street flagship like?

It opened in March 2018 with around 1,500 m² over three floors, 12-metre LED-clad arches on the facade, touchscreen tables, a lounge with books, a knitwear theatre and payment points spread across the floor instead of traditional tills.

What is set-dressing visual merchandising?

It’s calling visual merchandising something that only aims to impress: screens, installations and displays that catch the eye but don’t help the customer understand, choose and buy. Good visual merchandising is measured in sales, not photos.

Is opening a flagship store still worth it?

Yes, when it’s the consequence of a business that already sells and has the team to staff it. As a remedy for a brand that doesn’t convert, it usually ends up as a very expensive fixed cost.

Which store KPIs show whether a design sells?

Footfall, conversion rate (transactions divided by visitors), average transaction value and units per transaction. Measured before and after each change, they tell you whether the space sells or just decorates.

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Sources (accessed October 2026): Retail Gazette, Benetton’s Oxford Street flagship closure · Benetton Group, London flagship press release (2018) · Design Week, flagship opening (2018) · Infobae, Clientes Anónimos Retail Barometer · Merca2, interview with Eduardo Martín Cardona · WWD via Yahoo Finance, Massimo Dutti flagships