Convenience Supermarket Design Trends Europe 2026-27 - Efficient Convenience Store Formats.

Our award-winning expertise in retail branding, store design, and format innovation delivers sustained growth, stronger customer loyalty, and increased profitability for supermarket and convenience retailers across Europe and global travel markets. This strategic perspective is grounded in extensive benchmarking experience, including SSP Group’s Point airport convenience stores in Iceland, Centra’s “Good to Go” format in Belfast, Ireland (CampbellRigg), and Virši’s convenience and service station network across Latvia and Lithuania (Design Studio H2E).

Format efficient retail, drives sale growth, band loyalty, & differentiation.

Convenience retail is entering a decisive growth phase as high-footfall environments, airports, rail stations, petrol forecourts, and dense urban centres,  become primary battlegrounds for customer loyalty and brand relevance. Winning brands are no longer defined by location alone, but by their ability to deliver speed, relevance, experience, and operational excellence at scale.

CampbellRigg’s award-winning Centra “Good to Go” concept, developed in partnership with Musgrave’s leadership team, is a benchmark for European convenience retail performance. The concept redefined how convenience stores integrate brand strategy, shopper-focused layouts, fresh food merchandising, and format planning into a unified commercial system, driving measurable uplift in sales per square metre, dwell time, and repeat visitation.

Looking toward 2026–27, European convenience retail will be shaped by compact multi-format models, frictionless journeys, flexible merchandising systems, and bolder visual identities. Retailers will compete on how intelligently they translate predictive data, design, and brand architecture into high-conversion environments.

CampbellRigg enables this transformation, turning convenience retail into a scalable growth engine, optimised for today’s fast-moving, experience-driven consumer.

The images feature the Point convenience store at Keflavík Airport (KEF), Iceland, delivering a fast, convenient retail experience with travel essentials, snacks, freshly prepared hot food, and alcoholic beverages.

The interior of an SSP Point convenience store, a travel-focused brand commonly located in high-traffic environments such as airports and railway stations. The store highlights a strong chilled drinks offer and freshly prepared grab-and-go food, supported by self-service Express Kasse checkout kiosks technology to maximise speed, convenience, and throughput.

The Problem:
Convenience retailers face fragmented shopper behaviour, rising operational costs, and growing pressure to differentiate in saturated urban and travel markets. Legacy store formats struggle to support evolving food-to-go missions, digital engagement, and local relevance simultaneously. Poorly aligned brand architecture, inconsistent layouts, and disconnected customer journeys reduce conversion, limit dwell time, and dilute brand equity. Retailers require an integrated strategy that unifies format, brand, and experience into a commercially accountable growth platform.

The Strategic Solution:
High-performing convenience brands adopt multi-format strategies, predictive planning, and modular store systems that flex across travel, forecourt, and urban environments. CampbellRigg’s approach aligns brand architecture, store design, loyalty platforms, and merchandising strategy to measurable KPIs, sales uplift, productivity per square metre, and ROIC. Investment is focused on scalable concepts, compact layouts, and experience-led zones that accelerate throughput while strengthening emotional brand connection and long-term profitability.

Customer Experience Trends — Phygital:
Next-generation convenience experiences are phygital by design. AI personalisation, predictive availability, and frictionless checkout operate invisibly, while physical spaces deliver emotion through fresh food theatres, intuitive layouts, and community cues. Shoppers demand speed, relevance, clarity, and trust at every touchpoint. Flexible formats, localised assortments, bold visual merchandising, and digitally-informed layouts increase dwell time, basket size, and loyalty across multi-format convenience ecosystems.

Our Focus and Expertise:
CampbellRigg partners with supermarkets and convenience retailers to deliver high-impact retail branding, format development, store design, and marketing systems. We specialise in multi-format convenience strategies, experience-led layouts, fresh food merchandising, and omnichannel brand activation. Using data-driven insight, predictive modelling, and scalable design platforms, we translate investment into measurable commercial growth, increasing loyalty, profitability, and brand equity across complex retail portfolios.

Centra is Ireland’s leading convenience store brand, with around 496 locations nationwide and set to exceed 500 stores. It focuses on community-based convenience retailing, quality fresh food, on-the-go meals and strong own-brand ranges, expanding through new openings and store refurbishments to drive growth and customer relevance.

Working hand-in-hand with Musgrave’s leadership team, CampbellRigg transformed Centra convenience stores in Dublin through a fully integrated programme of brand strategy, store design, and format planning. The result is a locally relevant, performance-driven convenience experience that elevates the customer journey, boosts operational efficiency, and delivers measurable increases in sales per square metre. As one of Ireland’s largest convenience networks, Centra is setting the benchmark for fresh, on-the-go retail.

Awarded Convenience Store of the Year, CampbellRigg’s Centra Good to Go concept redefined convenience retail, delivering a highly engaging, shopper-centric environment that elevated the food-to-go experience, accelerated sales performance, and significantly strengthened brand loyalty.

Our Focus and Expertise:
CampbellRigg Agency partners with supermarkets to deliver high-impact branding, store design, and retail marketing solutions across food, homewares, and textiles. We specialise in multi-format strategies, experience-led layouts, visual merchandising, and omnichannel campaigns that increase basket size, dwell time, and customer loyalty.

Using data-driven insights, predictive technology, and scalable concepts, we create locally relevant, performance-driven retail environments. Our integrated services align brand identity, shopper experience, and commercial KPIs, helping retailers translate investment into measurable growth, higher ROIC, and long-term competitive advantage.

Centra’s “Good to Go” range brings fresh, convenient options to shoppers across Ireland and the United Kingdom, featuring popular items like Garden Salads and Caesar Salads. These ready-to-eat meals are part of Centra’s vibrant food-on-the-go offering, typically displayed in the refrigerated deli or salad sections of stores. Priced between €2.49 and €2.99, they combine quality, freshness, and value for busy customers.

The Centra app: For added convenience, many locations allow pre-ordering via the Centra app or website, enabling quick pick-up through their “Beat the Queue” service. Depending on your local store, these salads are also available for delivery through Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat, making it effortless to enjoy fresh, on-the-go meals anytime.

Freshly baked today concept: The store layout has been designed to be part of Centra's “The Fresh Market" initiative, which emphasizes fresh food sections. 

Store Design Concept: Centra utilizes clear zoning to help customers navigate the convenience store.

Centra’s fresh selection strategy delivers high-quality, on-the-go meals, perfectly merchandised for convenience. Displayed in accessible wire baskets, products are positioned to maximize visibility, encourage impulse purchase, and streamline shopper flow, reinforcing Centra’s commitment to freshness, speed, and an engaging, performance-driven convenience shopping experience.

Clear Signage and Wayfinding: Prominent, clearly labeled department signs help customers navigate easily and reduce anxiety. This ensures shoppers can find specific items quickly.

"I am very pleased with the very good job that Campbell and his team have done to help us create our new look, and have no hesitation In recommending CampbellRigg for their excellent work in a very challenging retail environment." Carlos Criado-Perez Chief Executive, Safeway

Virši, a 100% Latvian-owned company combines energy and convenience retail into a seamless customer experience. Operating more than 84 service stations and a growing network of standalone convenience stores, Virši offers fresh, locally roasted coffee, hot snacks, and everyday essentials. Designed as meeting and refuelling hubs, the stores cater to busy lifestyles while providing traditional fuels, alternative energy, and a convenient, performance-driven retail experience across Latvia.

Design: The convenience store showcases a bright, open floor plan with extensive lighting and warm wood-grain accents, creating an inviting environment. The layout highlights a wide selection of snacks, beverages, and on-the-go meals, complemented by own-label coffee, all prominently displayed in thoughtfully designed cases and counters for easy access and impulse purchase.

“I am writing to recommend CampbellRigg for business cooperation on creative design solutions in the retail industry." Murat Akdag - Head of Marketing, Migros Ticaret A.S. Turkey

Between 2026 and 2027, retail leadership will be defined by the ability to simplify complexity while deepening local relevance. Sustainable performance will be unlocked through the intelligent integration of predictive technology, format planning, loyalty ecosystems, and brand architecture, all anchored to clear commercial outcomes: sales uplift, productivity per square metre, and ROIC. Growth will favour organisations with the agility, capital discipline, and execution capability to convert strategic insight into repeatable returns across diversified, multi-format retail portfolios.

"The next-generation supermarket is not defined by geography, but by its ability to translate intelligence into relevance and relevance into return."

Our Four-Step Process:
1. Book a consultation call for free
2. Co-create a bespoke brief 
3. We execute the creative work fast
4. You see sales, brand loyalty and market share uplift

Schedule your consultation today and receive a free quote.

Cost-Effective Excellence:
Our pricing structure is highly competitive, offering exceptional value without compromising on quality or creativity.

Rapid Execution:
We move fast. From concept to implementation, our agile team ensures your project is delivered on time and to the highest standards.

Multidisciplinary Expertise:
Our team brings together seasoned brand strategists, architects, interior designers, and graphic designers, collaborating to create seamless, end-to-end brand environments.

Global Reach, Local Insight:
With successful projects delivered across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, we combine international experience with local market understanding.

Scalable Project Delivery:
Whether it's a flagship city supermarket or an urban convenience store on a petrol forecourt, we manage and execute projects of all sizes, efficiently and effectively.

Proven Track Record:
Our designs evolve branch networks from purely transactional spaces into experiential, relationship-focused brand environments, enhancing engagement, elevating customer experience, and driving tangible business results.

Full-Service Creative Agency:
From rebranding and marketing campaigns to spatial design and rollout, we provide an integrated service tailored to your goals.