Look and feel

It’s relatively easy these days to create knockout gorgeous stores at a sensible cost. Especially as manufacturers are often keen to supply retailers with great-looking free, or part-sponsored, display systems. But, even if you’re spending your own money, you must match that spend to your Big Idea. A poundshop doesn’t need the same level of quality or design as, perhaps, a boutique jeweller. Equally, stores such as Hotel Chocolat prove that you can achieve classy results on relatively modest budgets (go and have a closer look at the fixtures and fittings – it has managed to adapt some pretty standard kit and make it look amazing – that’s clever retailing).

Windows

Your windows are your outside communicators and they must be made to work hard for you. So many retailers seem to think this either means filling them with meaningless piles of stock or filling them with a billion confusing messages, neither of which are any use to you.

A good window display is critical. It must be welcoming: it must give passers-by new reasons to come in and it has to be readable in three seconds. New products are great as window features. When I asked the owner of a successful hardware store how he promoted his hot new items he said, “I put them in the window with a bloody great sign on them that says ‘bargain’ and ‘brilliant’ on it. Customers notice the sign. I know they do because they ask me about these new products and then they buy them.” And, of course, seasonal or special-occasion activity must be celebrated in your windows too.

The easiest mistake to make with windows is poor lighting, so go brighter than you think. Dull and subdued might be classy, but nobody will even notice you even have a window if they can’t immediately see into it. Good stage footlights are an excellent solution, but use LEDs to reduce heat build up, especially in smaller stores.

Broadly, your windows can do three things, either individually or in combination. They can do the following.

Baskets

If yours is a store where customers ever need to pick up more than one item, then you must offer baskets. Customers who pick up a basket nearly always buy something and very often buy more than customers who don’t have a basket. Stores always benefit from having baskets available invitingly on the side edges of the transition zone.

Put the baskets higher up, at waist height, not on the floor. Perching baskets on a table makes it very easy for your customers to just dangle an arm down and almost absent-mindedly pick up a basket. Doing so will increase sales and average transaction values.

Transition zone

This is the area near the door that transfers customers from the outside into the store. You have an opportunity here to make or break the customer experience. If the zone is too empty, customers can feel exposed and then reluctant to move further into the store. If it’s too cluttered, that’s off-putting too. Instead, it should be clear and easy but with things of interest in it to draw people in gently.

You also need to be aware throughout the store, but here especially, of what retail anthropologist Paco Underhill calls the “butt-brush factor”. He noticed that customers hate standing anywhere that puts them at risk of other customers constantly brushing past them. In the transition zone, this effect can be useful because it keeps people moving forward into the store. In front of displays, though, it can be a problem because you want customers to linger in those areas. When they do linger, they tend to buy more often. Take a look at all the customer flows in your store, from the entrance and back out again, to see where you can make improvements.

My all-time favourite window is also one of the simplest I’ve ever seen: it’s an understated and fun masterpiece – you can’t see the shoes. Almost everyone walks over to have a look.

Source: Koworld

Hot-spots and dead spots

Working with BP, one of the questions they asked us was about the best location for hot offers. Traditionally, these were displayed on an end-fixture facing customers directly as they walked in. We suspected this might actually be a dead zone rather than hot retail promotional space. We ran an observational study across a number of sites that involved tracking customers’ gaze as they walked in. We noticed two things:

• Nearly three quarters of all customers turned directly left on entry (BP shops tend to have their door on the far right when viewed from the forecourt), without even looking at that first fixture.
• More than half of all customers (including some in the group above) did an incredible thing when they entered the shop, relating to their main reason for visiting the forecourt, which was to buy fuel. I bet you’ve already guessed what they did. Some 53% of all customers would step into the shop and immediately look back over their left shoulder to check their pump number as they moved into the store. These people were never even aware there was a fixture, let alone looked at it.

So where are the hot-spots? Every store layout is different and, away from FMCG, you should be looking to make all parts of the store worth stopping and interacting with. Avoid high-traffic areas, but make it natural to go from one hot-spot to the next so that customers feel they are always engaged. I hate saying it, but outside of FMCG and variety stores it isn’t quite true that “eye level is buy level”. Here’s the thing – if everything is displayed at eye level, it requires fixtures that are at least as tall, which obscures sightlines. People feel the most comfortable when they aren’t hemmed in by aisles and you have a better opportunity to draw people around the store if they can see the things they want or are interested in over and through other displays.

Good promotional hot-spots

Creative use of promotions is essential. Fill the store with them, show people excellent value and then make it easy for them to take you up on your brilliant offers. Never allow a promotion spot to go empty. If you have run out of a line, even for just a few hours, get the promotion POS off the floor right now. If you don’t, you will annoy customers who will feel you have let them down.

The ideal promotional hot-spots are:

• visible from the door
• well lit
• bristling with stock
• easy to linger in front of
• honestly presented
• clearly merchandised
• well signed
• surprising.

Promotional product can mean a lot of different things, remember, such as:

• price offers
• products we want to showcase because we love them
• new acquisitions
• seasonal favourites
• things that go together (preferably with a package price)
• new ideas
• products in the news
• hot trend items.

A good tip in a small store is to reserve a space that’s in a customer’s immediate eye-line when they come in through the front door, and use that to showcase a changing selection. Mark it as such, make it clear and both regulars and new customers alike will make it their first stop on each visit.

Back wall

Do you remember how record shops (now making a comeback in 2016) always used to feature the top 20 singles up on the back wall? That was so they could draw every customer right the way through the store. The really savvy stores would make it very easy for customers to walk through the middle of the shop to the back wall, so customers would all be flowing down that central aisle. Then, when a customer had found their chosen single, they would turn and look for the cash desk. This would be placed back up towards the doors. The customer couldn’t easily walk back along the central aisle because it was full of people heading towards them, so they would zigzag through the displays to either side. This zigzagging was brilliant because it meant the customer was exposed to a whole succession of promotional hot-spots as they navigated their indirect course.

Cash desks

There are lots of arguments over where best to put cash desks. To be honest, all have their pros and cons. My preferred position is half-way down one side wall. You can see most of the store from there, queuing can be dealt with neatly and it doesn’t eat into the best selling areas.

Here are the most popular options:

• Half-way down one side – my favourite.
• At the front to one side – makes it easy to greet customers walking in, but puts the desk right in the middle of important promotional space.
• In a centre island – although islands can break up sight-lines, this can work really well, especially if you are able to have two people working the desk most of the time because the pair can then watch half the store each, giving you full visual cover.
• On the back wall – popular really only because it usually puts staff near to back-of-house areas. It makes it hard to greet customers and is the shoplifters’ favourite option because staff are so far from the door.

Impulse buys

Whatever you sell there will be products in your range that will make great cash-desk impulse purchases. In a newsagent’s, chocolate is an obvious example. Hip clothing stores will put cheap toys and iconic trinkets on the counter. Anything that is attractive, low cost and that is physically small makes a great impulse purchase. Vary your selections a little and don’t crowd the till area. A few well-chosen items can have a direct impact on increasing your average transaction values. Avoid, at all costs, the hideously uncomfortable joke of forcing your staff to actively sell these items. Staff at WHSmith are made to ask customers if they would like “Any half-price chocolate today, sir?” They hate having to do it and customers are made to feel uncomfortable. It’s pushy and weird.

Sight-lines

Two considerations here are foremost:

• Can customers see their way around the store?
• Can you see them?

Customers like to be drawn through your space by the exciting and attractive products and promotions you put in their middle-distance forward vision, even as their brains fight to pay greater attention to the peripheral and to movement. They will often miss things that are right next to them, unless you lead them right to the spot.

Being able to see customers is important because it makes it easy for you and the team to acknowledge them. It is also vital in reducing shoplifting. If you can see the thief better, they are less able to steal – simple as that.

Signage

Always go for crisp and readable over complex, over-designed or wordy. Customers just do not have the time or inclination to decipher clever complicated messages. Promotional signage, especially, should convey a strong bold message in just a few seconds. Tatty signage does nothing for your store – if POS gets damaged, throw it away or replace it immediately.