In January 2016, The Guardian's Mark Walsh reported a growing trend of major online retailers - including behemoths such as Amazon - opening brick-and-mortar stores to add a physical high street presence for their goods. As well as driving foot traffic, these stores also serve as important showrooms - where potential customers can look, touch, feel and try products before buying them.

With the online arena an increasingly crowded and expensive space, more vendors and manufacturers than ever are seeing the benefits of a more intimate physical space where potential customers can really get to grips with a company's product portfolio. Creating a physical showroom or store is a very expensive endeavour, however, which requires not just construction and product stocking, but also staffing as well. This is an outlay that many businesses are unable to afford.