8 Store Planning Tips for Retail Brands
Posted by Julia Morrissey on Mar 30, 2022
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Effective store planning can have a dramatic effect on a retail brand’s profitability. From customer heat mapping to mobile point of sale devices, there are numerous tools at your disposal to evaluate and improve the customer experience your store is delivering.
Below, we share 8 store planning tips to help you create the optimal shopping environment for your customers.
In order to implement an effective store layout, you’ll first want to understand how customers are currently interacting with your store.
Heat mapping can help you establish which parts of the store are getting the most and least foot traffic and during what days and times as well as how customers generally move throughout the space. You can also even get data on how often products are being touched in a particular area of the store.
These insights can help you make smart decisions about how and where to display your products, what displays or fixtures to use in-store, and where to position store employees. All of this information will be critical to your visual merchandising and retail operations staff.
If a high proportion of customers walk out without making a purchase, you’ll want to investigate what may be deterring them. Converting more customers could be as simple as tweaking your store floor plan, adding more or less lighting or technology, altering paint colors, and so on.
Ask customers for feedback. You can speak with them directly in-store or conduct an online or email survey. Hearing directly from the customer can provide you with valuable insights, helping you to identify key issues that could be holding you back from attracting shoppers.
You’ll want to maximize the space you have in store. This is especially true if you’re one of the many brands that are giving up their big box leases and instead opting for smaller square footage locations. Luckily, today, there is no need to have clunky cash registers and checkout counters taking up precious store floor space.
Store associates equipped with mobile point of sale (mPOS) devices can assist customers from anywhere in the store. Without leaving the customer’s side, an mPOS allows store associates to check inventory, locate additional product details, and complete transactions.
Instead of having a large dedicated space for your point of sale and related solutions, create a seating area for customers or their potentially-restless partners to relax. This freed up space can also be utilized for more experiential activities such as alterations, personalization, and more.
Never assume customers know where to look for a particular item. Use a variety of ceiling, aisle, and floor-mounted signage to direct them to particular departments or areas.
Color-coordinated shelving, flooring and signage all help to distinguish different zones, taking customers where they want to be quickly and effortlessly. For example, if you offer store pickup for online orders, you need to make it clear to customers where they should go when they walk in your front door. The less uncertainty, the more seamless the experience and happier the customer.
Great customer service is a game changer. Don’t leave customers hanging around waiting for assistance—engage and inspire them.
A mobile POS can empower store associates to deliver a great experience for their customers. With a mPOS store associates have a 360-degree view of the customer, including personal notes, birthdays, and shopper preferences. This level of detail creates opportunities for more personalized interactions and upsell opportunities.
In-store technologies can improve the customer experience significantly and should be considered when store planning. Consumers want convenience and technology can help you deliver.
Think about incorporating QR codes on item tags or NFC tags on display cases. These technologies enable customers to access more information, such as a product video, reviews, and availability, more quickly than a paper tag ever could. They also are really minimal, meaning you don’t have to worry about them sticking out or throwing off your store aesthetic.
Self-checkout is another tech that is growing in popularity. In a recent survey by Toshiba, 80% of U.S. adults expressed a desire for non-traditional checkout methods like self-scanning kiosks or consumer apps. You can give your customers a bit more autonomy in the checkout process while creating a tech-first but not overly techy store environment.
As previously mentioned, mobile POS devices are also game changers. A mPOS will allow you to deliver a fantastic, modern customer experience.
Based on the feedback you receive from customers, your in-store technology capabilities, and through your analysis of traffic flow and customer behavior, you can make smart adjustments to your current retail floor space.
From angling aisles for greater visibility through to replacing cash registers with mPOS devices, improvements to retail floor space management can greatly impact your business.
When store planning, you’ll also want to consider your industry. A shoe store might benefit from a free-flowing boutique layout, while a sporting goods retail brand may wish to move customers through specific zones using a forced-path layout.
Walk through the existing store with a customer’s mindset and be sure to visit competitors’ stores as well. Consider what catches your eye and what goes unnoticed. If you identify weaknesses, your customers may notice them as well.
Our final point is a reprise of the first. Use data to monitor how changes you make have altered customer behavior, ensuring these changes lead to improvements and don’t cause secondary issues like bottlenecks or restocking difficulties.
What works in 2022 might not work in 2023, so stay focused on the evolving expectations and needs of your customers.
Our omnichannel-as-a-service platform allows retail brands to run stores on iPhone. This ensures you can deliver the modern, personalized shopping experience that customers expect.
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