Photo courtesy of Trio Display
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FEATURE STORY
Designed to Sell
Expert advice on how to make your space work for you
Trio Display President Jeff Grant points out good store design involves a variety of things, including the storefront, the front sign, the window displays, the flooring, ceiling, lighting, counters, wall and fixture displays, graphics, video, props, theming and merchandising.
Photo courtesy of Trio Display |
by Maura Keller
Many a provider of goods and services would like to do for their business what Starbucks has done for the coffee shop—get the consumer to spend about three times what they used to spend. According to the experts, it’s not because their coffee is so superior, although it is very good. Rather, it’s that Starbucks has transformed the ordinary task of getting something to drink into a delightful experience. And their store design has played a significant role in doing just that. By re-evaluating their store design, tobacco retailers can likewise enhance the customer experience and improve their bottom line.
Why design is important
As markets become ever more competitive, the winners in today’s economy will be the ones who go beyond service to deliver a satisfying experience.
Photo courtesy of Trio Display |
“Getting store design ‘just right’ benefits both you and your customers,” says Howland Blackiston, a principal at King-Casey, a premier retail brand consulting/design firm that helps clients develop innovative solutions that result in increased customer loyalty, higher sales and greater ROI. “For you, thoughtful designs can improve operational effectiveness, increase trial, improve throughput, create competitive differentiation, increase the sales of your most desirable (profitable) products, and ensure customer loyalty. For your customers, thoughtful designs can enhance their shopping experience by making shopping more fun, more ‘educational,’ easier and faster.”
Scott Truitt, a brand image coach who designs retail environments that are intended to communicate a company’s brand, says that when customers enter a store, they are evaluating the store environment against a list of criteria in their heads to determine whether the store feels like them—whether there is a point of view or lifestyle there to which they can relate.
“This isn’t something they do consciously,” Truitt says. “This is all beneath the surface, and it happens within the first few seconds in the store. So from the moment they walk through the door, they have what I call a ‘starting acceptance’ level. From there, it can go up or down. But it doesn’t tend to shift very far in one direction or another once they’ve established their starting acceptance level. Everything they view within the store from that point on is judged against their acceptance level. It will shape their views on merchandise selection, product quality, service level, price—everything that they consciously think about in determining whether or not to make a purchase, and whether they will return again to make more purchases in the future or recommend that store to others.”
Experts advise that you need to make sure every element of your space, from floor to ceiling, is working for you. |
Trio Display President Jeff Grant says the goal for all small shops should be to make the store your customers’ favorite. “By paying attention to detail and making your store different than any other, the brand created will separate your store from the competition’s,” he says.
It’s also important to remember that today’s shoppers are savvy. “They’ve been marketed to their entire lives,” Truitt says. “They don’t want to hear claims of product quality, selection and value—they want to see it. If a store is designed to communicate a brand identity that customers can get on board with; if it is designed to help customers find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, while also allowing them to make exciting discoveries; if the store’s fixtures and finishes validate the quality and value of the merchandise; if it sells a unique product, selection, lifestyle or experience that customers can’t get anywhere else, then the ‘stuff’ will fly off the shelves. If not, well, good luck getting them to buy. And better luck to you in getting them to come back for more.”
Defining who you are
While defining your store’s brand is not required when improving your store’s design, it certainly can make a difference in the long run.
Art courtesy of King-Casey. King-Casey’s report on their COZI
system gives detailed information on how to use strategic
zone merchandising to improve customer service and your bottom line. |
“There are certain retail principles that apply to every retail store no matter what the product, no matter what the brand,” Truitt explains. “For example, when customers enter a store they tend to move to the right unless something guides or pulls them to the left. Also, customers’ eyes are somewhat uncontrollably pulled to anything that is lit three times brighter than its surroundings.”
These are things that apply to the “what” of designing a retail space. What can I do here? But they won’t answer the “who” or “why” or “how.” Who are you doing this for? Who is your target audience? You can’t be all things to all people, so who are you as a company, and therefore who is your core customer? What is the experience of shopping in your store, and how does that tell a story about who you are and why customers should want to buy from you?
“These days customers can get ‘stuff’ just about anywhere,” Truitt says. “What is it about your brand that makes them want to buy from you? If the store does not communicate a strong brand image that wraps a lifestyle around the products and the shopping experience, then the products just become a commodity that competes on price and selection and nothing else. That’s a tough argument to make to customers these days.”
Tactics to take
So what can tobacco retailers do to enhance and improve their space and make it work harder for them?
“There are many things that can be done,” Blackiston says. “The real question is ‘where do you start?’ With so many options, where do you get the biggest bang for the buck? The key directive is to focus on those vital few things that will make the customer experience better, while improving the sales of your most profitable offerings.”
Truitt adds that innovative store design is about understanding your customer’s lifestyle, mindset and priorities, and creating a space that satisfies all of their needs, and surprises them by also giving them what they want.
Chart courtesy of King-Casey.
In King-Casey’s COZI zone merchandising system, once you’ve identified the zones in your store, you need to determine a merchandising design strategy for each zone. They point out that actual “design” is the last step in the process.
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“Innovative stores, then, use space planning, lighting, merchandising, and signage and graphics to help customers intuitively navigate the store to find what they want, discover a few things they hadn’t seen before, make their way to the register, make their purchase and be on their way,” Truitt says. “They employ display fixtures that display products in a visually appealing way, and that validate the quality of the merchandise. They use signage and graphics that help customers find what they want and provide information the customer needs to make a purchase decision.
They use cross-merchandising to get customers excited about groupings of products as opposed to individual products and to create a lifestyle image for the customer.”
Grant adds that in small shops, the retailer needs to treat the store like a ship. “Use all the available space carefully,” he says. “Merchandise from 12 inches off the floor and to at least 8 feet in height. Utilize the counter by adding showcases, bins, room for impulse buys. Use graphics sparingly. Make sure the merchandise is displayed neatly and appropriately.”
One key mistake that retailers often make is cluttering their stores. “Store owners tend to display way too much stuff,” Blackiston says. “They hang up every promo, dangler, tent card and poster provided to them by their suppliers. There’s no overall strategy driving in-store communications and displays. The result is a cluttered mess. Everything has equal and/or competing presence. It all becomes an overwhelming hodge-podge of information to your customer. So they see nothing. In addition, the placement of such communication is often non-strategic—it is displayed here, there and everywhere. There is no consideration of how a customer actually behaves in a certain zone.”
Blackiston and his team at King-Casey employ their unique COZI methodology to make retail space work more effectively. COZI (Customer Operating Zone Improvement) is King-Casey’s unique approach for understanding customer attitudes, behavior and your retail environment. “Any retail space consists of many different customer zones,” Blackiston explains. Each is unique and each is used in a unique way. For example, there is a street zone (what customers see as they drive or walk by); an entry zone (where customers walk into the store); product display zones (where customers browse for product); perhaps a beverage zone; a pay zone; and so on. Better understanding of these zones helps develop brand solutions that make the customer experience efficient and more pleasant.
“But stores tend to think holistically when developing their store designs and in-store communications strategies,” Blackiston says. “They shouldn’t. Stores should be taking a more granular look at how customers actually use and interact within each of these various zones. That’s because customers behave and operate very differently in different zones. Their needs and expectations are different from zone to zone. Each zone is right for one merchandising strategy, and dead wrong for another. The right message in the right zone can maximize ticket and margin, while creating an enhanced customer experience. This approach can also optimize how you design a store layout and customer flow. When you get it right, customers can find what they want faster, discover new enticing products and leave your store better satisfied.”
For example, shop owners tend to put up a vast amount of communication all over the store. Posters and banners all around the front door are typical. Most of these posters are designed to get as much information on them as possible. King-Casey has conducted consumer behavioral research and performed hidden camera studies with observations showing exactly how customers behave and act in various zones.
“Did you know that customers entering a store will spend about two seconds or less reading what’s in the “entry zone?” Blackiston asks. “A COZI approach to merchandising would dictate that whatever is on the door has to be designed to be read in less than two seconds or it does not belong in this zone. Failure to comply will only contribute to that first deadly sin: ‘clutter.’”
Truitt agrees. “One of the more common mistakes is being penny-wise and pound-foolish,” he says. “This is most often expressed when smaller retailers save money on fixtures by accepting every ‘jobber’ rack offered to them by suppliers and distributors. Their stores then become a hodge-podge of fixtures, or are overwhelmed by the brand imaging of the manufacturers. The brand of the store is lost amidst the competing jobber racks, and the resulting shopping experience is a half-step above a garage sale. If customers are looking for specific brands, there is sometimes value in using unique fixturing supplied by the manufacturer, but it is important to keep this to a minimum so that these fixtures really are unique features and not something that overwhelms or waters down the store’s brand.”
Experts also suggest you allow for negative space. Negative space is floor space or wall space where nothing is happening. “Smaller retailers often follow the rule that the more stuff they get into their stores the more they will sell,” Truitt says. “This is true to a certain extent, but it exists on a bell-curve. The key is to display enough product such that the customer has a perception of selection, but not so much that they are overwhelmed and lost in a sea of ‘stuff.’” By separating groups or “departments” of merchandise with a blank wall or large graphics, you allow the customer to see the categories of products in bite-size pieces, helping them to more easily find what they’re looking for and to discover your products one section at a time.
Remember that the space inside the front door and just to the right is typically the most powerful sales space in the store. “Use that space for anything you want to feature, Truitt says. “Rotate the merchandise in that space so that customers coming back into the store have the perception that your stock is new and fresh and exciting. This is a great space for seasonal merchandise.”
And keep the “Milk & Eggs” theory top of mind. “There are destination items that you know customers are coming in for. Display those toward the back of the store as a means to pull customers in to the store,” Truitt says. “Make sure they can see them from the entry, and make sure that it’s something worth featuring.”
Pay attention to lighting. “Depending on the overall mood of the store, most stores will want a nice mix of ambient light and feature lighting on key displays, signs and graphics,” Truitt says. “Smaller retailers often find that the best solution for them is a mixture of compact fluorescent ambient lighting with line-voltage or low-voltage halogen feature lighting. Fluorescent lighting is energy efficient and creates a nice sense of overall illumination, however, it is a very flat light. Halogen feature lighting is a point-source light, which means that it casts stronger shadows and gives products more shape and dimension. By combining the two, you will get an overall illumination level in the store that makes customers comfortable and allows them to navigate the store, while drawing their attention to key features.”
Photo courtesy of Scott Truitt.
One problem smaller retailers face, according to brand image coach Scott Truitt, is trying to cram too much into a small space. His advice is to display enough product so the customer has a perception of selection, but not so much that they are overwhelmed and lost in a sea of stuff. |
Cleanliness is also a key factor in store design. “As much as customers don’t want to have to squeeze around each other, they also don’t want to have to walk around messy displays or boxes left out from stocking the shelves,” Truitt says. This is a challenge in many small stores that don’t have stock rooms for receiving merchandise. If yours doesn’t, do your stocking at night—don’t make customers walk around your mess or feel like they shouldn’t interrupt your work to ask a question or make a purchase.
On a grander scale
Grant points out that your store design involves a variety of things, including the storefront, the front sign, the window displays, the flooring, ceiling, lighting, counters, wall and fixture displays, graphics, video, props, theming and merchandising. “Any store that does not take all these factors into account has a much greater chance of failing completely or at the very least underperforming,” he says. “A good store designer can pull all these elements together in a manner that both makes the store look good and sells goods.”
Grant recognizes several trends in store design, including cement floors, open ceilings with bay lights, less slatwall, wood tones with bright accents, more attention to lighting and more attention to video, sound, graphics and digital signal.
“The most significant trend for smaller retailers, I think, is a move toward authenticity,” Truitt says. “Customers respond better to materials and furnishings that appear authentic, as opposed to things that are designed to look like something else, or something that was fabricated as a ‘theme’ piece.”
Finally, it is important that you remember that store design does not need to be innovative to be successful. “The ideas my grandfather used in the 1930s and ‘40s still apply,” Grant says. “Keep the displays orderly and interesting, light the store well, maintain a decent traffic flow, add a little music. The store will sing—innovative or otherwise.”
For more information on these companies and their services, as well as detailed information on store design, visit:
www.king-casey.com
www.triodisplay.com
www.scotttruitt.com
www.visualstore.com
www.ddimagazine.com
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