We welcome you to the new year and a time to think about starting fresh! This month's topic explores viewing your store as you stage. There are lots of ways to improve the "set" and "props" that you are using without spending lots of money. Please let us know your thoughts on this topic or if you want to see other topics covered in the future.
To go along with this month's topic, we have also introduced our Guide to Getting Retail Right focused on Store Design. Check it out on our Web site.
We look forward to hearing from you!
SET THE STAGE
When discussing shop interior design we often advise our clients to view their space differently than they do other types of design and construction projects. When building and furnishing a home it is normal to be concerned about and to have quality and longevity as priorities. Homes last hundreds of years. Stores, however, normally become “tired” in five to seven years. In order to project the right image and to relate to changes in products and consumer behavior, stores must be constantly adapting their space to be timely and appropriate. Some are continually evolving and upgrading and have shops that come across as fresh every season. Others do complete and total renovations every 6-8 years. A few get away with minimal changes and no renovations but with great risk and often with lost opportunities for growth and preempting competition.
Since a shop does not need to last decades, it can be viewed as a stage and many elements as props that will be eliminated as the “show” changes. Many ingredients are for show and
are about looking good as opposed to lasting long term. Taking this approach helps to get store owners comfortable with embracing necessary change and also helps to control expenses (i.e. a mahogany look will generally work for appearance and desired image and message in a store and cost many times less than real mahogany).
Stores in the fashion businesses must not only be trendy, they must look trendy as well and in order to maintain that image constant change is necessary. In many cases for a store or restaurant to be right they must first look right. Generally when the right approach is taken, investing in store improvements brings quick returns. It is not uncommon for stores and restaurants to experience 25-40% sales increases in years following renovation...and if new merchandise categories are added or new space built, increases are generally larger percentage wise than the percentage of additional space or merchandise.
Unless changes will make the shopping experience of the customer better in some way such as more efficient, more enjoyable, more pleasant, more product, better flow, etc. than they probably should not be done. As in most other aspects of retail, when work is done in an organized, budgeted, planned manner and is integrated into other activities such as merchandising and marketing it will bring results.*
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*Note
Improvements and changes will not bring results if they are not part of a plan and a result of a strategic and coordinated approach. Professional designers with store and restaurant experience should be used. The look and feel of the space should be coordinated and built to an understandable whole for the consumer. Many entrepreneurs in their enthusiasm to make changes and present new ideas create confusing hodgepodges of their space. Some store owners add elements because they like them personally, or “it is pretty”, or it “was a great deal”. Those are not good business reasons for spending and will not bring return on investment.
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