Tuesday 13 September 2011

13/9: New London 2012 Shop at John Lewis - Westfield, Stratford City

Today marked the opening of Stratford City Westfield and with it the new London 2012 shop within John Lewis.



The London 2012 shop is locate don the 3rd floor of John Lewis, and as you will know from the press release from a few weeks ago, overlooks the Olympic Park. It had a huge range of merchandise from clothes to household goods, plush, toys and of course collectables. The pin wall had a fair range of items from original logos up to all the latest Team GB pins. They had some of the mascot street scenes that are starting to appear and some London landmark pins in both blue and white varieties.

Interestingly, while I was there, there was interest in the white logo pin and the London Borough pins, neither of which were available. I think that the shop will adjust its range of pins when they see what's in demand. The staff appeared knowledgeable and approachable. I noticed that pins had been arranged in some cases by packaging and not by series, but I guess to the average customer it's not an issue. Collectors may find it strange though. Overall a welcome retail outlet for London 2012 collectors and Im sure it will be part of the daily run for those of us who hope to spend a lot of time around the Olympic Park in 2012!

My thanks to Sarah in the store who listened to my views on the pin wall and the store.

There is a meeting space behind the shop in the area which overlooks the park, and for today Panasonic were demonstrating their TVs and 3D technology. Far more important than that though was the fact they were handing out pins (if you asked)!


The pin shows Wenlock and a blue logo over the 'Panasonic' name. This is not a Honav UK pin, so will have the WWL notation when it is added to the catalogue.

Another sponsor had new pins out at Westfield today. Lloyds TSB had new pins being worn by their staff which showed the sort-code for the branch (will will be the nearest customer facing LTSB branch to the Olympic Park) along with the composite logo. They weren't available to the public though. I hope to have photos soon.

1 comments:

Bill said...

I also had words about the layout of some of the pins. Where they did not have something they filled it with anything that they had so that in the stamp/pin section Football was found twice, in the football section and also in the elusive Aquatics section.