Interior Design Tips – 6 Steps to Design Your Retail Shop

 

Have you ever wonder why is your competitor’s store is always full of customers while yours are empty even though you both sell same products?

It’s all because your competitors use an interior designer that know these tricks more than yours. That’s why today, we’re going to share some tips about one of the things that created the difference mentioned above. Interior Design has many forms, one of them is retail design. There are a lot of ways on how to do interior design for retail and shops, but there are also a few common things in the design that differentiate between a run-of-the-mill retail design and a great retail design. Designing the interior design for a retail store is a very important point to be successful in today’s era.

To create interior design for retail store and shops, the most important thing for you to take note is the details of your design. How to arrange products so people will come into your store more often, how to mix and match products so customer will browse more, how to get them to head to the checkout, and other details. For Retail, these details are the basics and the most important of the design and you have to fully know about these basics in order to make an effective interior design for retail to attract customers.

 

Shopfront Interior Design

 

 

Interior design wise, this is the first important step that decides whether a customer go into your store or not. This space consists of the first five to fifteen feet worth of space, depending on the size of your store. Here, the things customer see will be used by them to subconsciously judge the whole product of the store whether it’s to their liking or not. So it’s better if you know your niche and what customer going to your or competitor’s store usually want, and show it there nicely. To add more appeal to the potential customer, you can decorate your entrance. An eye-catching entrance can attract more customer than decorating the interior of the shop. Once the first step is finished, we can move to the second step…

 

Retail Design Right Side Rule

 

 

 

This is the second important step to design your retail interior. From our continuous observation in span of a few years, we noticed one particular habit of many customers.  Most customers that enter a shop usually turn to the right first. This is a very important point in interior design for retail and shops. The first group of product that a customer see will be their first impression of the overall product in your store, this phenomenon often referred to as “The Power Wall“. So be sure to give special attention to what product you choose to display on the right side of your store because it can make or break your total sales.

Make sure you put products that can arouse your customer’s attention. Put the products that you know customer will like there, for example: a brand new or limited items, products with high demands, or places you specifically design to attract customer’s attention.

 

 

Design a Path in Retail Interior

 

 

After you know where your customer will turn, the next thing to do is to make them walk and browse your products. Design a path that make your products gain maximum exposure to the customers. This can make them more likely to buy something from your store. There is no perfect or absolute way to make a path, it all varies depending on the size and layout of your store.

Most store use circular path to the right to get customer to walk through the whole store to gain maximum exposure to the products, some will divide the store into several section with different color to differentiate the products in the store. One thing to pay attention to is that you will want to use the path to lead the customer to a certain place of product. One of the way to maximize this effect is to put an eye-catching product or attention-grabbing display at the end of the aisle in one path, for example.

 

Put Interesting Products in Strategic Places

 

 

After you arranged all your products according to the tips above, you may want to make your customer look at it, instead of just brushing it off and going to the next section. One of the ways we found to prevent this, is to give them something to look at, we refer it as the so-called “speed bumps”. Things that can be used as this speed bumps are for example, signage or seasonal display.

Other than those products, you can use something the retailers refer to as “Merchandise Outpost”, which are special display for products between aisles that can encourage impulse purchases and also complementing products in its proximity. Other things that you can do if you don’t have aisles in your store, is to group the products that goes well together in one place so customer will at least stop for a bit to look at it, therefore, increasing the chance of buying things around it. It’s also recommended to change what you display every week or at least regularly, so it won’t lose the sense of novelty to repeat customer. You can also set the popular product at eye-level, and put unpopular product at the bottom or higher up.

 

Make Customer Comfort your Priority

 

 

Interior Design also played a great role in terms of providing comfort for customer. According to research by Paco Underhill, customers, especially women, don’t like cramped aisle where they could potentially brush against another customer. Even when it’s in the place where a customer is very interested with the product, research proves that people will still avoid going to that particular aisle. So, make sure that everyone have enough space when browsing for products, so things like these won’t happen.

Other than personal space problem, you can also provide a resting area in your store. Give some seats to let tired customers rest, and thus stay longer in the store. This also useful when the customer is accompanied by another people who are not interested in buying merchandise. One important thing you have to note when designing this rest area is to make the seats facing the products in the store, so the people resting will still see the merchandise and they still think of purchasing other things.

 

Design Your Checkout Counter Carefully

 

 

Last but not least, where you put your checkout counter will also play an important role in your Interior Design. For maximum benefit, it’s better if a checkout located at one of the stopping points in the path you have designed. Which stopping point you choose, it depends on the size and layout of the store itself, so there is no perfect place for it.

Also, keep in mind that the place where you put the counter must be able to observe whole store without being obstructed. This is so you can keep an eye about all happenings inside the store, especially if you don’t have any staff around. You can also take advantage of the wall behind you to create a catching display that can attract customer’s attention. Another thing you can do is to encourage customers to do “Last Minute” purchase by placing items customer commonly needs. One thing you must never forget is BE POLITE. A customer don’t like rude shopkeeper, and will leave your shop in a heartbeat and never come back again once you are rude to them.

 

Conclusion

Interior Design for Retail and Shop is a continuous process. Every person has their own likes and dislikes, so there is no template for Retail Design. The only thing you can do is to observe your customers to know them better, see what they like and dislike from your products, see their movement pattern and behavior, test several different arrangements and choose the most optimal one. Keep your eyes and ears open and you’ll be able to create an Interior Design that is good for both of you.

If you want know more about Interior Design World, read the posts in our Blog here!