Did you recently open a physical store but aren’t getting the sales you need to make rent? Are you struggling to find ways to showcase your products in an appealing way? It may be time to consider your retail space design.
The design of your store combines two important details: your branding and your customer’s psychology. If your store design doesn’t account for people’s unique habits and thought patterns when shopping, even your best products will gather dust.
With this in mind, read on to learn about retail space design to find out how it can benefit both your sales and your customers’ experience shopping!
Stepping Inside
It’s important to keep in mind that your customers need to feel comfortable when approaching your store and when they first walk inside. Otherwise, they may hang back and feel reluctant to browse your items. Although you may get shoppers that enter your store, you may also find that they don’t browse long enough.
The first way to create an inviting environment is through color. Choosing a neutral color palette in similar tones will make your store appear inviting and relaxing. Shoppers will feel comfortable spending longer amounts of time inside because it’s easy on the eyes.
You can then use bold accent colors, imagery, or text in the places of your store that you want to call the most attention to, such as your shelf featuring the newest arrivals.
Store Layout
After the color psychology of the space, the next most important factor to master is the traffic flow of your store. The layout needs to allow shoppers to walk around the entire space, encouraging them to take their time and expose themselves to all of the products available in your store.
There are three main store layout options:
Grid
The grid layout is often used in grocery and convenience stores. Notice that as soon as you walk inside a store with a grid layout, you can clearly see where all the products are located. This makes it a great option for shoppers that know what they want and want a more efficient shopping experience.
Loop
Loop layouts are commonly used when you have several varieties of products you’re selling and want to maximize the space available. With loop layouts a defined path circles around the whole store.
Shoppers in the United States will typically turn right first and traverse the entire loop counterclockwise, going up and down each aisle until they reach the beginning.
With loop layouts, products placed in the perimeter loop get as much exposure as those placed in the center.
Free Flow
You’ll find that free flow layouts are often used by small businesses or more specialized stores. Displays and shelves are placed without grids or straight lines in mind.
Instead, the focus is more on creating attractive product vignettes or staging scenes that help customers visualize the products in their own homes.
Custom Product Displays
Product display placement is the next most important item to consider. Custom product displays built with your products in mind and the size of your space will ensure that the merchandise is the star.
You’ll also need to keep in mind that certain zones of your store will carry more weight than others. This will directly influence the number of sales. Here are a few key areas of your store that you should keep in mind:
Transitional Space
The transitional space is the area near the doorway when customers first walk inside. This is when customers adjust to the new shopping environment and get into a new headspace. You want to make this area as inviting as possible and keep it clear of signage or important products; they’ll most likely be ignored.
Power Wall
In the United States, customers are more likely to turn right after they walk into a store. You’ll want to keep this in mind and focus on featuring your most important merchandise or products that truly showcase your brand on store fixtures to the right.
With this in mind, it’s important to avoid placing your checkout counter or changing rooms in this key selling area.
Merchandise Outposts
Outposts are also an important part of product placement because they act as a visual break from the normal flow of the store. These are normally placed at the end of aisles and contain products that help encourage impulse buys.
Utilizing Countertop Space
Remember that your checkout counter is just as important to retail design. People are still shopping and browsing while they’re waiting in line, so be sure to feature products on the wall behind the checkout counter. This is also a great place to display countertop sign holders with discounts, business cards, and more.
This is also a great place to feature add-on products. When customers are waiting, they may just throw something into their bag because they’re making a purchase anyway and don’t mind adding on a few dollars to the purchase price. This is when product sample displays can come in handy.
Creating an Impactful Retail Space Design
Retail space design is all about crafting a comfortable experience for your customers that will encourage them to stay awhile, browse, make a purchase, and come back in the future. This simply isn’t possible if you’re using predominantly loud colors and the store is hard to navigate.
By paying attention to traffic flow and investing in product displays that suit your merchandise and the size of your store, you’re far more likely to make a sale.
Ready to upgrade your own store with custom displays, countertop sign holders, and more? Contact us for a free custom quote today!
