Gatwick airport shops, terminal by terminal

The shape of it is simple: landside is for essentials, airside is where the shops are. Once you are through security, each departure lounge opens with the walk-through World Duty Free store (the duty free guide covers what it genuinely saves) and then runs into the retail proper. A spine of chains trades in both terminals: WHSmith and Boots on both sides of security, then airside JD Sports, InMotion for electronics, Sunglass Hut, Superdry, BOSS, Dune London, Monsoon, Havaianas, Accessorize, a LEGO store and a Discover London souvenir shop. Whichever terminal your airline uses, that core list is waiting.

Hours follow the flight schedule. Airside stores open at 04:00 with the first wave of departures and mostly close at 20:30 in the North Terminal and 21:00 in the South, with World Duty Free the exception, trading until the last flight. So a 06:00 departure gets the full line-up, and a 22:30 one gets duty free and not much else. The roster itself moves a few names a year; this page reflects the airport's directory, and the live shopping directory is the place to confirm a specific store the week you fly.

The North Terminal carries the longer list of one-terminal names, and it leans upmarket. The best known is the Harrods outpost, a compact airside version of the Knightsbridge store for gifts and accessories. Beauty is the North's strong suit: standalone Jo Malone London and Bobbi Brown counters, plus SknFed, a London-made vegan skincare brand, alongside the big fragrance halls inside World Duty Free, where the whisky section carries collector bottles and travel exclusives. Sunglasses get three doors (Ray-Ban and Oakley as well as the shared Sunglass Hut), fashion adds Reiss and White Stuff, and Collection rounds out the designer end with multi-brand jewellery, bags and accessories.

The North also does the pleasant extras. Whittard of Chelsea covers tea and coffee gifts, Venchi does Italian chocolate and gelato, and Ladurée, new in 2026, sells its macarons airside. A Well Pharmacy sits after security for medicines beyond the Boots range, and AeroSpa runs treatment bars in the departure lounge for pre-flight massages and manicures. Families get a practical bonus: the free play area sits opposite the airside WHSmith, covered properly in the travelling with children guide. Airside hours run 04:00 to about 20:30.

The South Terminal shares the full both-terminal spine, from WHSmith and Boots through JD Sports, LEGO and Superdry, and its departure lounge keeps slightly longer hours, 04:00 to about 21:00. Its own names skew practical and giftable rather than designer: World of Whiskies trades as a standalone airside shop (04:00 to 21:00) with the rare and travel-exclusive bottles, Pandora covers jewellery, and Rituals, new in 2026, does bath and body. AeroSpa's treatment bars operate at South too, and the Reiss branch here is listed as temporarily closed in the current directory, so check before walking the lounge looking for it.

South is also the terminal where landside shopping earns its keep, because the railway station is part of the building and the check-in level carries the practical stops, Boots, WHSmith and an M&S Simply Food, within a short walk of the platforms. If you are meeting someone or killing time before a train, that landside cluster plus the currency exchange desks is the whole offer; everything else needs a boarding pass. The lounges corridor airside runs past JD Sports and InMotion, a useful landmark if you are hunting for the South Terminal lounges.

Before security, both terminals keep the same short list: a WHSmith for papers, snacks and chargers, a Boots for the forgotten toiletries and medicines, ChangeGroup currency desks, and the Excess Baggage Company counters, which double as a luggage and accessories shop alongside bag wrapping and storage (the left luggage guide has the storage prices). It is enough to fix a packing mistake, not a reason to arrive early.

Arrivals is thinner still, with one genuinely useful exception: each terminal has an M&S Simply Food in the arrivals area open 24/7, which is why a late landing does not have to end at a petrol station on the way home. There is no airside shopping for arriving passengers, no duty free on the way in (the UK does not do arrivals duty-free), and no meaningful browsing while you wait at the belt, so tell whoever is picking you up not to budget time for it.

Three pre-order services are worth knowing. World Duty Free's Reserve & Collect takes 10% off anything reserved online between 30 days and 24 hours before the flight, paid on collection airside, with no charge if you never turn up; the mechanics are covered in the duty free guide. Boots offers order-and-collect into its airport stores, which is also the official route for pre-ordering baby milk and food for airside collection, a genuine help given the rules on carrying baby milk through security. And ChangeGroup takes online currency orders for collection before security at a better rate than its walk-up desks.

The tax question gets a plain answer: airport shopping in the UK is no longer tax-free apart from alcohol and tobacco in duty free. Airside tax-free sales of other goods ended in January 2021, and the VAT refund scheme for overseas visitors went at the same time, so there is no refund desk to find and no paperwork to collect at Gatwick. What you see on the shelf, VAT included, is the price, and any advertised airport saving is the retailer's own discount against the high street. For eating rather than shopping, the restaurants guide covers both terminals the same way this page covers the stores.

• Do the shopping airside, not landside. The landside list is a fraction of the airport's retail, so clear security first and treat the departure lounge as the shopping centre. Allow for the queue before you allow for browsing.
• Time it against the closing hours. Most airside stores shut at 20:30 at North and 21:00 at South, so evening departures see shutters, not shops. World Duty Free trades to the last flight and will be the only full store late on.
• Pre-order what you already know you want. Reserve & Collect takes 10% off duty free, Boots collects baby milk and toiletries to the airside store, and ChangeGroup's online rate beats its counters. All three cost nothing to set up a day ahead.
• Landing late? The M&S is open. Both arrivals areas keep a 24-hour M&S Simply Food, so milk, bread and tomorrow's breakfast can be solved before the car park rather than on the drive home.
• Do not pick a terminal for its shops. Your airline decides where you fly from (the terminal lookup settles it), and both sides carry the core names. North happens to hold the longer list, but nobody sensible books easyJet for the Harrods.