Secret Shopper: Space NK arrives at Lakeside as the West Thurrock shopping centre gets a glow up
Lakeside has traditionally been Bluewater’s less polished neighbour, but a wave of new stores, restaurants and investment suggests things are changing. RTIH’s Secret Shopper heads to the newly opened Space NK to see whether the beauty retailer is another sign of a Lakeside resurgence.
If you live anywhere within reasonable driving distance of Bluewater and Lakeside, you probably have an opinion on which is better.
For me, it has always been complicated. Bluewater is the more polished, slightly more upmarket younger sibling, while Lakeside has historically felt a little more dated. But Lakeside has an important advantage: there is simply so much there.
Beyond the main shopping centre, the wider Lakeside retail parks mean you can combine a trip to the likes of Zara or Apple with TK Maxx, B&M, Home Bargains and an alarming number of other places capable of separating me from my money. In reality, I probably end up at Lakeside more often than its rival.
Bluewater, however, retains the crown for one fairly predictable reason if you have read this column before: Sephora.
I have been a Sephora obsessive since long before its return to the UK, dating back to trips to the US when a visit was an essential part of the itinerary. Its Bluewater store has since produced some of my favourite Secret Shopper experiences, so any beauty retailer competing for my attention locally starts with a considerable disadvantage.
Space NK has always come closer than most, though, and when I heard that it was opening a new store at Lakeside, I knew a visit was inevitable.
The store officially opened on Friday, 14th August, with Space NK promoting an opening day event that generated plenty of attention online. I headed there a few days later, deliberately arriving not long after Lakeside opened because it was the school holidays and I suspected things might get busy.
That turned out to be a good decision. When I passed the store again at around 2pm, it was packed.
Lakeside is having something of a moment
Space NK is interesting partly because its arrival does not feel like an isolated opening.
Something is happening at Lakeside. There has been visible work across the centre, from new furnishings and improvements to parts of the infrastructure to a growing collection of hoardings announcing incoming retailers. Some areas are beginning to look markedly smarter and more contemporary than they did a few years ago.
The tenant mix is changing too. Urban Outfitters has joined Lakeside in a 6,500 sq ft store, while the centre is currently promoting arrivals including LEGO, Lefties, Bershka and Oliver Bonas alongside Space NK. On my visit, the evidence was everywhere, with large hoardings for Lefties, Bershka, LEGO and Arabian Oud dotted around the centre.
There is also more happening around beauty. Pureseoul adds a dedicated K-beauty proposition, while the enormous Next development that opened last year brought Bath & Body Works into the mix.
Food and drink is improving as well. Black Sheep Coffee is now at Lakeside, while GAIL's has signed for a 2,033 sq ft bakery on the lower level. And, frankly, you know you've made it when GAIL's turns up.
I am not suggesting Lakeside is suddenly attempting to transform itself into Bond Street. Nor should it. Part of its usefulness is precisely that huge mixture of premium brands, mainstream fashion, restaurants, entertainment and value retailers. But the balance is shifting, and the arrival of a retailer such as Space NK feels significant within that.
Bigger than it looks
From the mall, the new Space NK does not initially look enormous. The bronze-toned frontage is smart and suitably premium, but I expected a relatively compact store. Once inside, it goes much further back than the frontage suggests.
The interior is lovely. Warm woods, soft neutral tones and extremely good lighting create an environment that feels expensive without tipping into intimidating luxury. The individual brand concessions are easy to navigate and there is enough breathing room between displays that browsing does not become an obstacle course, something that matters considerably more when a beauty store is busy.
There is also a genuinely impressive amount of product. Space NK's current UK assortment spans some serious beauty names, including Rare Beauty, Westman Atelier, Victoria Beckham Beauty, Tatcha, Hourglass, Charlotte Tilbury, Kosas, ILIA, Summer Fridays, Saltair and newer additions such as Prequel and Armani Beauty.
I still think Sephora has the edge overall when it comes to brands, particularly because of some of its exclusives, but this is no consolation-prize collection.
In fact, Space NK currently has one product firmly on my future shopping list: Westman Atelier's new Suprême Bio-Complex Liquid Foundation. The £65, 30-shade foundation is the brand's first true liquid foundation and Space NK currently labels it as "new & exclusive".
From viral drops to mini must-haves
What I particularly liked was how much of the store had been organised around discovery rather than simply by brand.
There was a "Trending at Space NK" fixture, dedicated areas highlighting heroes and bestsellers and a "Mini but Mighty" wall packed with smaller versions of products. That works commercially, of course, but it also reflects how beauty is increasingly shopped. Customers arrive having seen a product on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, having heard somebody describe something as a "holy grail", or wanting to test a viral £40 serum without immediately committing to the full-size version.
The most visually striking example was the "Viral Drops" installation. Clear vertical dispensers were filled with colourful miniature products, with wheels beneath allowing customers to release them into trays below.
It is playful merchandising, but there is a sensible retail idea underneath it. Space NK is taking the language and behaviour of digital beauty culture and giving it a physical expression in store.
One of the things I still love about shopping for beauty in person is being able to actually try everything. I can watch endless TikToks telling me a foundation is going to change my life, but before I hand over £50 or £60, I want to see the shade in real life, swatch it and work out whether it actually suits me. Space NK does that side of the experience really well, while also making it ridiculously easy to find all the products you've already seen taking over your feed.
Space NK understands that the store does not need to compete with TikTok. It needs to make the next stage of that journey easier.
Helpful without hovering
The other part of the experience that Space NK got exactly right was the service. I was greeted almost immediately when I entered, and throughout the visit staff regularly checked whether I needed anything without making me feel as though I had acquired a beauty advisor escort.
That balance is surprisingly difficult to achieve. Too little assistance in a large beauty store can make finding products frustrating, particularly when testers and stock are separated. Too much can make what should be an enjoyable browse feel pressured.
Here, whenever I actually needed somebody, a member of staff seemed to appear. I had a particularly good conversation about Rare Beauty with one of the team, who knew the products and was genuinely enthusiastic about them.
The staff were also clearly delighted with their new store and talked about how well the Friday opening had gone, something I had already seen reflected in the considerable buzz around it online.
The whole team came across as friendly, knowledgeable and excited to be there rather than simply repeating a corporate customer-service script.
On service alone, it was a 10/10 experience.
A loyalty scheme that actually gives something back
Space NK also has an advantage that is much less glamorous than a wall of Rare Beauty but increasingly important to me: its loyalty programme is very useful.
I already use NDULGE and had a £5 reward waiting in my account. At the till, it was simply scanned and applied to the purchase without any fuss.
The mechanics are straightforward. Standard NDULGE members currently receive one point for every £1 spent and a £5 reward for every 100 points earned. Members can also receive birthday rewards, invitations to brand events, double-points days and early-access benefits. Customers spending £1,000 within 12 months move to NDULGE Deluxe, where Space NK says rewards are doubled.
Once a standard 100 point reward is triggered, it is automatically added to the account and remains valid for three months. There is a broader lesson here for retail loyalty programmes. I don't need an app to congratulate me for being a valued member while giving me virtually nothing in return. If I repeatedly spend money with a retailer, a tangible reward that can be applied easily at checkout is much more persuasive.
Space NK manages that well, and its digital experience more broadly is strong enough that the app, website, rewards account and store feel like parts of the same shopping journey rather than unrelated channels.
And obviously, I didn't leave empty-handed
This was never going to be an observational visit. First into the basket was the new Erborian Glow Moisturiser, a radiance-focused day cream designed to provide all-day hydration and a glass-skin finish. I have now used it enough to say that this was an excellent purchase. It is beautiful under makeup, gives the skin a healthy glow without making everything slide around on top of it, and has rapidly made its case for a permanent place in my routine.
Then came Rare Beauty's Brow Harmony Tinted Flexible Lifting Gel. The original clear formula has been expanded into six tinted shades, with Space NK describing it as waterproof, sweat-resistant and designed to give flexible rather than crunchy hold.
Where have I been? I am already a Rare Beauty fan, yet somehow I had managed not to try this. It gets a straightforward 10/10 from me and I can already tell it is going to become my default brow gel. It gives enough tint and definition to make a difference without making my eyebrows look as though they have been laminated to my forehead, and it stays put.
I also picked up Rare Beauty's newer Soft Pinch Lip Oil Stick. It is designed to combine the feel and hydration of a lip oil with more substantial, buildable colour, and I went for a cooler-toned option after my previous Sephora colour analysis confirmed what I apparently should have known all along: I am a cool-toned girl.
It looks gorgeous on. The wear is not the longest lasting in my makeup bag, but I do not expect an oil-based lip product to behave like a liquid lipstick. I tend to wear a lip tint underneath products like this anyway, and layered over one it works particularly well.
Finally, I bought individual Patchology eye patches rather than committing immediately to one of the larger packs. Space NK sells several of the brand's treatments as singles, including five-minute gels targeting hydration and puffiness, which is a good way of trying them before buying multiples.
They worked. My under-eyes looked noticeably less puffy afterwards, so next time I will be bypassing the cautious single-pack experiment and buying the full set.
Clearly, Space NK's merchandising strategy has worked on at least one customer.
Is Space NK coming for Sephora's crown?
For me, not quite. Sephora still has the overall edge, partly because of its brand assortment and partly because I have had consistently excellent experiences with it, including at Bluewater. There is also years of nostalgia attached to the name for me that Space NK is realistically going to struggle to overcome.
But the gap is much smaller than it once was. This new Space NK is beautifully designed, surprisingly large, very well merchandised and staffed by a team that delivered some of the best service I have had in a beauty store recently. Its loyalty programme is strong, the app and physical experience connect neatly, and the product range contains enough brands and exclusives to give me genuine reasons to shop there even with Sephora just across the Dartford Crossing.
More importantly for Lakeside, the store feels like part of something bigger. Lakeside has always been useful, enormous and slightly chaotic in a way I rather like, but it increasingly feels as though somebody has recognised that usefulness does not have to mean standing still. With new fashion, beauty and food brands arriving and parts of the centre being refreshed, there is suddenly quite a lot to watch.
And somewhere behind one of those hoardings, Lefties is on its way. Given that it is part of the same Inditex stable as Zara and has been expanding internationally, I already know where a future Secret Shopper is heading.
As for Space NK, being at Lakeside means this will not be a one-off visit for me. I will absolutely be back, probably sooner than my bank balance would prefer, and that Westman Atelier foundation is already calling my name.
Secret Shopper rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
