We love a good store refresh, and 2019 served up some stunners.

From David Jones’ luxurious new womenswear floor at its Sydney flagship, to Ikea’s checkout-free (and maze-free) small-format store on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, here’s a look back at some of our favourite stories about store design from the past year.

David Jones opened its newly refurbished 3500sqm womenswear floor in August. It houses chic in-store concepts from highly coveted Australian brands such as Aje, Carla Zampatti, Bianca Spender, Camilla, Toni Maticevski and Zimmerman, as well as international labels such as Dries Van Noten, Stella McCartney, Proenza Schouler and Balmain.

Customers can also book in complimentary appointments at a new and luxurious personal styling suite, where they can enjoy a champagne on arrival while a stylist shows them a curated range of pieces to suit their needs.

Luggage and handbag retailer Strandbags launched a new store concept at Chadstone shopping centre in September – the first step in a new bricks-and-mortar strategy which will see some stores triple in size over the next three to five years.

Country Road is the first fashion retailer to receive a five-star rating from the GBCA, which ranks buildings across nine impact areas, including their indoor environment quality, such as air quality and acoustic comfort, energy, water, emissions, materials and other categories, for its new store in Chadstone shopping centre.

Most of the store’s environmentally-friendly features are not visible to the naked eye, such as its use of low-VOC paint and FSC-certified timber, or the education of staff about proper waste management – and that is by design.

The biggest Officeworks store in Australia, and the biggest office supplies store in the world, according to the retailer, began trading in Mentone, Victoria, in March.

At nearly 6500sqm, the store is four times the size of the average Officeworks, and its range of 35,000 products, double that of the average store, includes a huge assortment of educational materials and art supplies – new categories the retailer entered last year – office furniture, technology products, professional printing and copying services and more.

Ikea Australia officially opened its first small-format store at Warringah Mall on Sydney’s Northern Beaches in May.

The 98sqm store is the retailer’s first Home Planning Studio, where customers can book one-on-one planning sessions with staff to design their dream kitchen or bedroom storage solution.

The store lacks many of the signature features consumers have come to associate with the Swedish flatpack giant, including a warehouse, blue plastic ‘Frakta’ bag and meatballs, not to mention checkouts.

Supermarket giant Coles is leveraging the power of independent foodie destinations to provide its very first in-store food hall experience.

The retailer’s Tooronga Village store, in Melbourne’s south-east, has welcomed CBD-based café Earl Canteen and Australia’s leading sushi retailer, Sushi Sushi to the fold, alongside its largest fresh convenience range to date.