Articles on Retail Design

Successful Retail Selling Machines

What motivates a shopper to stop, look into a store, and then enter and purchase a product? If the shopper was not influenced by advertising and did not recognize the store name, he may have been motivated by need, or he may have made an impulsive purchase, but in either case, the store design and its presentation of merchandise were motivating factors. The store design influences him to stop, take notice, and enter the store. The success or failure of a retail store is dependent on a number of factors, including the cost, quality, and attractiveness of the products for sale. Also important are the store location, quality of service, merchandising and the store design. While many successful stores do not excel in all of these categories, their success can usually be related to the extent to which they have achieved a positive shopper response in a majority of them. The store designer typically has no control over the products for sale, the quality of service, or store location, but may have an impact on merchandising (depending on the receptivity of the client and the strength of the designer's ideas), and should have the major responsibility for store design.

A store designer can create a successful retail selling machine by following three guidelines: first, work with a client who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the store and a builder who is interested in satisfying the intent of the design to the last detail; second, create a store which emphasizes the product; and lastly, create a store that is functional. The first guideline requires the designer to have a client who is truly interested in the project design or who can be educated by the designer to realize the importance of his involvement. The best designs are not the sole product of a designer's imagination but rather are his interpretation of the program requirements of a client who knows his product and his product marketing. At the first project meeting with the client, the designer should request a detailed program indicating not only the client's functional requirements, but also his perception of the image, ambiance and materials of the store to be designed. The designer and the client must both be motivated to achieve a successful design that meets the requirements established by the client and refined by the designer. Early on, the designer should also request a construction budget from the client. It is impossible to properly design without a realistic budget. If the client submits a budget that is unreasonably low, he should be educated as to current construction costs and asked to increase his budget accordingly. Also, a schedule for design preparation, bidding, construction, and stocking should be reviewed with the client and a realistic time schedule established. With the program, budget and schedule established, designer and client will have achieved the initial "meeting of the minds" required to design the store. After the store has been designed and working drawings completed, designer and client must choose a construction manager or general contractor to build the store. The builder should be selected not only on the basis of a price, but also on the basis of past performance in the field of store construction (attention to detail, quality of construction, and ability to satisfy clients’ demands). The builder should understand the design intent; suggest realistic alternatives if budget problems are encountered; maintain close supervision over quality subcontractors; build the job on time and on budget; and work effectively with the client, designer, shopping center personnel and the local building officials.

The second guideline requires the designer to create a store that emphasizes the product. This is, after all, the most important element in the store, and this element must stand out from all others. Much like a fine painting, the product must be displayed suitably and framed with proper illumination. The materials of the store frame (which is, in fact, all the physical elements of the store other than the product) should enhance rather than detract while creating the proper image. Just as a Modernist print would not be displayed in an ornate Baroque frame, the latest in electronic equipment, with its crisp machined metal and smooth formed plastic parts should not be framed in roughhewn, heavy timbers and stained glass. Both the print and the electronic equipment should have a simple frame. The store frame should be well detailed, for poorly designed or executed details also detract from the product. Every element of the store must have deference for the product. Products are small or large; inexpensive or expensive; and common or unique. These traits should be evident in the store design. If the product is small, expensive and unique, like jewelry, it must be brought close to the storefront and displayed like a work of art. If it is large, inexpensive and common, like fabric, it can be displayed away from the front, grouped together by color or type, and illuminated as a mass to achieve maximum impact. In all cases, the shopper should be able to quickly identify the products for sale without relying on graphics. Shoppers should also be able to discern the relative price of the product without seeing price tags. Lighting is a critical designer's tool to emphasize the product. If the lighting is diffuse, the product will appear common even if it is very expensive and unique. High-intensity lighting is particularly effective to illuminate unique, single products, and fluorescent lighting, properly shielded with parabolic diffusers can effectively emphasize grouped common products.

The final guideline requires the designer to create a functional store. Materials, traffic flow, security measures, and merchandising must all be well designed to serve the customer properly and to maintain the integrity of the store. In general, all materials for the store should be durable, cleanable or easily replaceable, and fashionable. While the storefront entrance, flooring and the sales counter may take the most physical abuse, all other store areas within the customer's reach are subject to the wearing effect of customer use. Since a typical lease term may be ten years, this should be the minimum life expectancy required of materials. Ideally, the store should look as good on the last day of the tenth year as it did on opening day. If a material, like carpeting, will not last the ten-year period, it should be designed to facilitate removal and replacement. Materials must also be cleanable by store personnel to maintain a "new store" took. Materials must be fashionable for the term of the lease, which means the designer may be more successful in the long run if he avoids the currently popular, recently introduced design trends which will quickly multiply and soon fill the mail with similar looking stores. It is best to create an exciting and individual image which successfully accentuates the product and will maintain its fashionable look. Traffic-flow into and within the store must move freely around displays and sales stations. The entry must provide a sense of store identity. Whether entering through an open or closed front, the shopper must feel he has left the common areas and entered an individual store. The stronger this feeling of entry and identification, the more successful the store recognition. Security must be considered in the earliest stages of design to permit it to work with the design. Sight lines, security mirrors, and electronic devices must be unobtrusive and not detract from the merchandising or create a "Big Brother" look. The definition of functional merchandising varies from store to store, but in general, the more the product can be displayed within customer reach, the greater the likelihood it will be purchased. Customers prefer to touch and closely examine possible purchases. If these guidelines are followed by a talented designer, they should result in a successful store design. While a quality store design may not necessarily result in strong retail sales, it can be the factor which separates an average store from one which is special both in appearance and sales. The secret of a good retail store design is to have a motivated client, designer and builder to execute a design which sells the product, not the store’s design. This will make it easy for the customer to find and purchase the product. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

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The Future of Shopping Center Design (A Prediction in 1995)

Shopping centers provide building enclosures to enable the buying public and the retailing industry to do business. For thousands of years, these enclosures and the spaces between have been evolving as a changing reflection of the overall society, its products and delivery systems. After World War II significant programmatic changes in society broadly changed the design of shopping centers. A more affluent middle-class spread into the emerging suburbia and relied on the automobile as if it were a body part. The result was the development of the typical enclosed mall and strip center accessed only by car and located in the suburbs. Since the 1970's the enclosed mall design concept grown from a local business phenomena to a national franchise, evolving into an icon of today's society; and the strip center has been a ever-changing battleground for retail forces competing for the shopper's attention and pocketbook. As we approach the year 2000, the design of centers is moving toward another period of rapid and significant change. Successful future shopping center design will reflect the requirements and desires of future shoppers, and the rapidly evolving retail industry.

Significant societal forces will change the design of shopping centers: the electronic revolution coupled with the restructuring of the middle-class will alter the programmatic requirements of both shoppers and retailers. The year 2000 will present a diversity of requirements to replace the more basic needs of the middle-Twentieth Century. On a simplified basis focusing on the shopper, given the trends toward dual-income, or single-parent families some shoppers will have less time to shop but more money (Richer-Faster shoppers), while others, reflecting an aging society, automation-forced business downsizing and other job-reducing trends, will have more time but probably less money to spend on shopping (Frugal-Slower shoppers). The former will seek speed and convenience in the form of drive-thru everything and total service with a reduced focus on initial product price, while the latter will seek the traditional best buy and an entertaining and comfortable shopping environment to help them pass the time.

The design of shopping centers will evolve to satisfy these demands. The Richer-Faster shopper will require smaller, unique, specialized and more convenient stores like today's automated teller banks and coffee bars, designed to service the shopper on the go. Other successful retailer responses will include general stores offering a little bit of everything in very convenient format. These convenient stores will be easily accessible by car in free-standing buildings or drive-up strip centers, or will be placed in a local neighborhood or virtual neighborhood location accessible by foot or on the Internet. Lastly department stores offering excellent service and quality will be in demand. The goal of the Richer-Faster customer will be to save time while purchasing quality products: retailers serving the Richer-Faster customer will provide high levels of service and product variety for a customer who can afford such luxuries. Such service may include time-saving benefits such as product selection, gift-wrapping, and delivery for this ever-hurried group. But the same Richer-Faster shopper will need places to relax and be entertained when they are able to find time. Stores which pamper the patron such as fine restaurants, spas, and book store reading rooms will grow to serve this group. This may even result in semi-private retail environments to provide a club-like, exclusive atmosphere. Richer-Faster shoppers may create a demand for display-only stores possibly directly run by manufacturers. These operations will permit the shopper rapidly evaluate and test products but rely on electronic ordering and product delivery systems other than off-the-shelf availability.

On the other hand, the Frugal-Slower shopper will continue to seek bargains in massive warehouse structures. Their goal is to save money. Often this consumer, having time not available to the Richer-Faster consumer, will be able to add value to the merchandise by purchasing materials and equipment at stores like home material supply stores or assemble-yourself furniture stores, creating the final product themselves. To serve these customers, "category killer-big box" retailers will become larger providing everything related to that category including all product use information. These stores will, in addition to the low prices permitted by their massive buying power, offer do-it-your-self courses along with knowledgeable salespeople and computer provided product information. As such the smaller "big boxes" without comparable product information availability will, by comparison, appear inadequate and fall by the wayside except for convenience shopping. "Big boxes" in excess of 125,000 square feet in area are becoming more common and this trend should continue.

Retailer trends such as "just in time inventory" and "display only" stores will result in a reduced requirement for in-store back-room space. Anti-fashion and "casual fashion" trends will continue and minimize many of the traditional mall tenant concepts. The goal for the typical enclosed mall shopping center of the future will be to attract both types of customers. Convenience is a relative term and the close proximity of the many different and new types of stores in weather-protected environments will attract both the Richer-Faster and Frugal-Slower customer. Yet, the enclosed mall will change. Large and small destination stores will be located at the exterior for convenient parking lot access. Malls will incorporate "big box-type" tenants, entertainment tenants, specialty food-service tenants, club-like pampering tenants, high-service stores, display-only stores and other destination-oriented uses in the spaces formerly occupied by back-rooms, former fashion tenants, and other large, deep spaces having only mall access. These tenants will have direct parking lot access. The other shops accessible only from the mall common area will become smaller impulse-shopping stores. In-line mall stores will no longer have the clout to demand lease clauses forbidding retailing in the adjacent "common areas" nor the interest. In fact they will encourage the development of the enclosed mall common space to be more than just a circulation space. The mall, while still providing passage from shop to shop, will become a large, income-generating store containing, self-service machines, kiosks, carts, wall shops and open display merchandising. The mall common areas including dining area will be entertaining, with live-music, active displays, and demonstrations. In effect, the traditional enclosed mall will become more like a bazaar...more exciting and less predictable. Interior design will utilize the tools of the computer age to constantly provide a changing interior environment. The mall commons space will have the unlimited flexibility to regularly alter its appearance, amenities and merchandising to satisfy the ever-changing entertainment-shopping needs of a generation weaned on rock videos, computer games, large-screen cable t.v., and the Internet.

The shopping center of the future will be viewed more as a flexible business enterprise adapting to and in competition with many other product delivery and entertainment systems and less as a relatively unchanging real estate asset. While location will still be a key to real estate, the design, merchandising, and promotion of shopping centers will become equally important. Thus, to attract paying customers, the shopping center designs of the future will reflect the demands of the customers of the future: competitive pricing and higher levels of service with convenience, entertainment, sophistication, and excitement.