Did you know that the vast majority of people turn to the right immediately after entering a retail shop? That’s an amazing piece of useful information regarding the basic psychology of human behavior.
The good news is that’s not all we know about people when they are shopping. Our purchasing behavior can be shaped by the appealing and natural construction of in-store environments.
If you’re either looking to rearrange your existing retail shop, or you’re planning on opening a new one, here are some effective tips you can use when designing your layout.
5 Layout Design Tips For Retail Shops
1. Sell With Your Power Wall
Now you now know that most consumers will gravitate immediately towards the right side once they’ve stepped past the threshold of your store, this is the perfect opportunity to put this natural behavior to good use.
Known in the retail industry as the Power Wall, as customers start looking towards the area on their immediate right, you want to do everything you can to ensure they get a great first impression.
Most retailers will strategically display their most impressive products and other high-priority merchandise in the hopes of making some impulse sales.
Others will carefully create a design for their power wall which helps to instantly convey the purpose or style of their brand. Whatever you decide, make sure it’s effective.
Otherwise, consumers who aren’t impressed may decide to leave the store just from looking at the Power Wall alone.
2. Dress up your windows
It seems that some retailers are no longer putting too much effort into their window displays any more. If you need convincing that this is a huge mistake, just look at how successful the window decorations have been for Myer in Melbourne for generations.
Kids everywhere have the fondest memories of these decorations, which in turn caused many of them to shop at the store. So always make sure you always create a welcoming exterior window that works for your brand.
While high-end retail stores need to utilize the space in their window displays to convey luxury, a cluttered window can actually work very well for bargain budget retail shops because it helps reinforce the idea of getting a lot for a small amount. Just remember that each window needs to tell a story, or at the very least, a chapter of one.
3. Create focal points
Whether you’re merchandising your Power Wall, designing a new window display, or arranging a new fixture in your store, it’s super important that they each have a single focal point as a priority.
Choose which item you want to highlight, strategically position it around eye level, and then start bringing as much attention as you can towards it with lighting and positioning other items around it.
This is one of the most effective methods of using your displays to catch the attention of consumers. While you obviously want to sell everything in the store, bringing attention to it all has been proven not to work as people lose focus.
That’s why choosing single focal points on each display will be far more effective. This will have a much greater chance of drawing them in, and then once their focus is hooked, they’ll begin to naturally look at other products surrounding it.z
4. Ensure access for all
Shopping is an important aspect of all of our lives, so it’s important to treat all of your customers with understanding and kindness by allowing access for everyone when designing the layout of your store.
Without accessible features in your store, shopping can be a very stressful experience for the 1/5th of Australians who live with a disability.
This means making sure there is enough space for someone to move freely through your store in a wheelchair. Simply by ensuring your store is accessible to everyone, not only will you remove any barriers for your existing customers, but it will also increase the chance of attracting new ones as well.
Don’t forget to create new focal points at wheelchair level too, as that will also help sales. Ultimately, ensuring everyone can access your store will improve customer loyalty before adding to your bottom line.
Same advice is for stores who are engaged in online shopping.
5. Arrange new displays regularly
Traditionally, most visual merchandising has been about attracting customers into your store and keeping them inside long enough for them to make a purchase.
While this is still true, visual merchandising should also be about ensuring your store is always Instagram-ready. These days, people come in with cameras on their smartphones, so you want everything in your store to look like it belongs in a magazine.
A well thought out and strategic new retail layout can significantly improve the satisfaction of your customers as well as providing increased sales figures to match. Just remember that customers are often seeking interesting and unique novelties.
So while new displays are critical on your power wall, you need to keep customers entertained and interested throughout the rest of your store too.
While regularly arranging your in-store displays can help get customers interested in your brand initially, even the smallest tweaks can convert them into long-term customer and brand ambassadors.
Remember that the layout of your store should be created to influence customer behavior by impacting their focus, retention, and overall enthusiasm.
Simply by considering the spatial arrangements and interior design elements of your store, you can generate interest, increase custom, and ultimately make more sales.
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Author: Luke Fitzpatrick
