Unique and creative retail design is a key tool in making sales – but by making simple mistakes in your retail design can have quite the opposite effect. Read on to find out how you can avoid making these errors in your store.
Dim Lighting
Customers navigate towards light areas of the store where they can see the products on displays well. This is because these spaces often feel more open and so the customer feels relaxed whilst browsing. Dimly lit areas can create big shadows on products, often making merchandise look less appealing to the customer. One of the main excuses for poorly lit retail stores is that good lighting is too expensive. However, as a creative retail design agency we know that a little creativity and experimentation can go a long way. Depending on your overall retail design aesthetic, placing additional lighting such as lamps and spotlights in darker areas can highlight your merchandise without breaking the bank.
Defective Decompression Zone
The decompression zone is the area around the entrance of a store, it’s named this because it is used to acclimatise customers to the new environment. This area often gives the members of the public their first impression of the store, so it is essential to make sure the decompression zone works as effectively as possible. If the space is cluttered with merchandise displays, people are likely to pass by without noticing them as it creates a busy environment, much like the street they have just walked in from. This means potential customers will not slow their walking pace and therefore miss your display. Instead, focus on creating an atmosphere that is dissimilar to the one outside your store. By contrasting lighting and flooring options with a few carefully displayed products, customers will automatically slow down and look at the display as they adjust to the new environment.
Crowding Merchandise
A common mistake that store owners make is trying to fit too many products into your store at once. Densely packed areas are visually exhausting and put customers off making purchases. It is much more effective to neatly display a few products in a visually appealing way than it is to pack as many different products as possible into a tight space. The same goes for floor space; it is much more important for a customer to be able to move around the store comfortably than it is to compromise floor space in order to display additional merchandise. Remember when planning your creative retail design that the rule here is quality over quantity.
Poor Signage
The number one rule when it comes to signage in retail design is to not obstruct the customer’s view. The aim is to provide the customer with more information about a product to encourage them to make a purchase, but if the customer cannot see the full range of products because the display is being dominated by a sign, then the sign becomes ineffective. Also, packing a sign with too many words will discourage customers from stopping to read it, as for most people shopping is a fast-paced activity. The idea is to answer any questions the customer might have and a cluttered sign gives the same ‘visually exhausting’ impression as crowding merchandise.
Jam-Packed Till Points
It is important to make sure there is enough room for the staff who operate the till area to move around comfortably. This means there should be at least three feet of space behind the counter for each member of staff.
Get in touch with us today and we will make sure your store never becomes a victim to these easy retail design mistakes! H Squared are specialists in creative retail design and are available to accommodate your every retail design needs.
