Once they are inside the store, convert them into customers buying merchandise
OBJECTIVES OF GOOD STORE DESIGN:
Be consistent with image and strategy
Positively influence consumer behavior
Consider costs versus value
Be flexible
Recognize the needs of the disabled - The Americans with Disabilities Act
Store Image
Serves a critical role in the store selection process.
Important criteria include cleanliness, labeled prices, accurate and pleasant checkout clerks, and well-stocked shelves.
The store itself makes the most significant and last impression.
Space Productivity
The more merchandise customers are exposed to that is presented in an orderly manner, the more they tend to buy.
Retailers focusing more attention on in-store marketing – marketing dollars spent in the store, in the form of store design, merchandise presentation, visual displays, and in-store promotions, should lead to greater sales and profits (bottom line: it is easier to get a consumer in your store to buy more merchandise than planned than to get a new consumer to come into your store).
TYPES OF FLOOR SPACE IN STORE:
Back Room
Offices and Other Functional Space
Aisles, Service Areas, and Other Non-Selling Areas
Merchandise Space
Back Room
Receiving area and stockroom
Department stores (50%)
Small specialty and convenience stores (10%)
General merchandise stores (15-20%)
Offices and Other Functional Space - employee break room, store offices, cash office, restrooms.
Aisles, Service Areas, and Other Non-Selling Areas
Moving shoppers through the store, dressing rooms, layaway areas, service desks, customer service facilities.
Merchandise Space - must have floor and wall.
Store Layout in Retailing - refers to the arrangement of fixtures, displays, aisles, and other elements within a retail space to optimize traffic flow, enhance the shopping experience, and maximize sales.
Conflicting Objectives in Store Layout:
Ease of finding merchandise versus varied and interesting layout.
Giving customers adequate space to shop versus using expensive space productively.
FOUR TYPES OF STORE LAYOUT:
Grid
Racetrack
Free Flow
Spine
Grid Design:
Straight design of a retail store.
Best used in retail environments in which the majority of customers shop the entire store.
Can be confusing and frustrating because it is difficult to see over the fixtures to other merchandise.
It should be employed carefully; forcing customers to back to large stores may frustrate them and cause them to look elsewhere.
The most familiar examples for supermarkets and drugstores.
Racetrack Design:
Major customer aisle(s) begin at entrance, loop through the store (usually in shape of a circle, square, or rectangle), and returns the customer to the front of store
Exposes shoppers to the greatest possible amount of merchandise by encouraging browsing and cross-shopping.
Free-Flow Design:
Fixtures and merchandise are grouped into free-flowing patterns on the sales floor – no defined traffic pattern.
Works best in small stores (under 5,000 square feet) in which customers wish to browse.
Works best when merchandise is of the same type, such as fashion apparel.
If there is a great variety of merchandise, fails to provide cues as to where one department stops and another starts.
Spine Design:
Variation of grid, loop, and free-form layouts
Based on a single main aisle running from the front to the back of the store (transporting customers in both directions)
On either side of the spine, merchandise departments branch off toward the back or side walls.
Heavily used by medium-sized specialty stores ranging from 2,000 – 10,000 square feet.
In fashion stores, the spine is often subtly offset by a change in floor coloring or surface and is not perceived as an aisle.
Visual Merchandising - the artistic display of merchandise and theatrical props used as scene-setting decoration in the store.
MERCHANDISE DISPLAY PLANNING:
Shelving
Hanging
Pegging
Folding
Stacking
Dumping
Shelving - flexible, easy to maintain.
Pegging - small rods inserted into gondolas or wall systems – can be labor intensive to display/maintain but gives neat/orderly appearance.
Folding - soft lines can be folded and stacked on shelves or tables - creates a high fashion image.
Stacking - large hardlines can be stacked on shelves, base decks of gondolas or flats – easy to maintain and gives an image of high volume and low price.
Dumping – large quantities of small merchandise can be dumped into baskets or bins – highly effective for soft lines (socks, washcloths) or hardlines (batteries, candy, grocery products) – creates high volume, low-cost image.
Feature Areas - within the store designed to get the customer's attention.
Feature Areas include the following: end caps, promotional aisle/area, freestanding fixtures, windows, walls, and point-of-sale (POS) displays/areas.
TYPES OF APPAREL DISPLAY FIXTURES:
Straight Rack
Gondola
Four-way Fixture
Round Rack
Straight Rack - long pipe suspended with supports to the floor or attached to a wall.
Gondola - large base with a vertical spine or wall fitted with sockets or notches into which a variety of shelves, peghooks, bins, baskets and other hardware can be inserted.
Four-way Fixture - two crossbars that sit perpendicular to each other on a pedestal.
Round Rack – round fixture that sits on pedestal.
Wall Fixtures
To make the store’s wall merchandisable, the wall is usually covered with a skin that is fitted with vertical columns of notches similar to those on a gondola, into which a variety of hardware can be inserted
Can be merchandised much higher than floor fixtures (max of 42” on the floor for round racks on the wall can be as high as 72”).
THREE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN MERCHANDISING STORES:
Value/Fashion Image
Angles and Sightlines
Vertical Color Backing
Value/Fashion Image => trendy, exclusive, pricy vs value-oriented.
Angles and Sightlines
Customers view the store at 45-degree angles from the path they travel as they move through the store.
Most stores are set up at right angles because it’s easier and consumes less space.
Vertical Color Backing
Merchandise should be displayed in vertical bands of color wherever possible – will be viewed as a rainbow of colors if each item is displayed vertically by color.
Creates a strong visual effect that shoppers are exposed to more merchandise (which increases sales).
STOREFRONT DESIGN must have: 1. Clearly identify the name and general nature of the store; 2. Give some hints as to the merchandise inside; 3. Includes all exterior signage; 4. In many cases including store windows – an advertising medium for the store – window displays should be changed often, be fun/exciting, and reflect merchandise offered inside.
Atmospherics
The design of an environment via visual communications, lighting, color, sound, and scent.
They are used to to stimulate customers’ perceptual and emotional responses and ultimately influence their purchase behavior.
Visual Communications
Name, logo, and retail identity
Institutional signage
Directional, departmental, and category signage
Point-of-Sale (POS) Signage
Lifestyle Graphics
Coordinate signs and graphics with the store’s image
Use signs and graphics as props
Keep signs and graphics fresh
Limit sign copy
Use appropriate typefaces on signs
Create theatrical effects
Lighting
Important but often overlooked element in successful store design.
Highlight merchandise.
Capture a mood .
The level of light can make a difference.
Color
It can influence behavior
Warm colors increase blood pressure, respiratory rate, and other physiological responses – attract customers and gain attention but can also be distracting.
Cool colors are relaxing, peaceful, calm and pleasant – effective for retailers selling anxiety-causing products.