6 tips to help you open a hot shop

Posted September 25, 2023

Private store owners may not be aware of the impact of retail store layout on sales. But research shows that less-than-ideal arrangements at product displays, checkout and service counters or aisles can influence consumer behavior in subtle but powerful ways. For example, when a customer is in a crowded aisle or feels like a clerk behind a high counter is watching you, a sale may be lost. Here are six tips for creating the best retail store layout.

1.Don’t put products in the “stress zone.”

For example, when American consumers enter a store, they tend to turn right. Remember where the goods are. There’s also a psychological shift going on inside the store. So customers often don’t notice displays of merchandise within 15 feet of the entrance. They also recommend using “speed bumps” (eye-catching in-store displays).

2.Choose a store layout that suits your business.

Most grocery stores use a grid layout to guide customers up and down the aisle. The circular layout has a central grouping display surrounded by circular or square paths. The free-flowing layout offers merchants the opportunity to stimulate impulse buying, as shoppers can move most freely around the store.

3.Minimize counters.

Store counters often separate the owner or salesperson from the customer, at least psychologically. This is not good for merchants because it creates a “surveillance” mentality and sends the wrong signals. Phibbs suggests that bosses let vacant employees pose as shoppers to hang out on the sales floor. He says it gives customers the feeling of a bustling store and makes them feel relaxed. If a counter is essential for completing paperwork, he recommends adjusting it to no more than the desktop.

4.Plenty of aisle space.

If the back of the item is close to another customer, the typical customer will avoid looking closely at the item. This is true even if the customer is very interested in an item. Avoid this problem by ensuring that access and floor space allow customers enough personal space.

5.Maintain good visibility.

Reduce inventory losses by keeping shelves low enough to maintain good visibility. Care is taken to ensure that the store’s display does not inadvertently provide cover for thieves.

6.Create a dramatic entrance.

If the store is not attractive, even a great store layout will not attract customers. Invest in a compelling entrance and strategically place signs to attract shoppers. Make sure at least a few products are visible to people who pass by the store window.

So what are the layouts?

1.Lattice layout

This is the most traditional form of store layout in supermarkets. Supermarket stores are generally in a lattice layout. Lattice layout is the product display shelves and customer channels are arranged in square shape segments. And the width of the main channel and sub-channel are consistent. All shelves are parallel to each other or at right angles. This layout is often seen in supermarkets, when shoppers push the cart in the aisle, turn the corner to reach another parallel aisle. This straight channel and 90 degree turns, allowing customers to choose goods in a unified direction and a series of orderly, smooth “S” route.

The advantages of the layout are:

Create an atmosphere of seriousness and efficiency.
The channel is designed according to the needs of passenger flow, which can make full use of the space of the store.
Customers can easily identify the product category and distribution characteristics, easy to buy.
Easy to use standardized shelves, can save costs.
It is conducive to the happy cooperation between salespeople and customers, simplifying product management and security work.

2.Free flow layout

Free flow layout is convenient for customers as the starting point. It tries to maximize the goods in front of customers. This layout sometimes takes the form of both grids and islands, and is a kind of irregular route distribution of customer channels.

Advantages of layout:

The layout of the cargo space is very flexible, and customers can walk through the shelves or counters at will.
The store atmosphere is more harmonious, which can promote the impulsive purchase of customers.
It is convenient for customers to browse freely, without creating a sense of urgency, increasing customers’ retention time and shopping opportunities.

3.Island layout

Island layout is arrange in the middle of the business place into the form of disconnect islands. And shelves are set up in the middle of the island to display goods. This form is generally use in department stores or specialty stores, mainly displaying less volume goods, and sometimes as a supplement to the grid layout. Now the domestic department retail store in the continuous reform of business practices. Many shopping malls introduce a variety of brand stores, forming a “store in the store” form.

So the island layout has been transform into a professional store layout is being widely use. This layout is in line with the requirements of modern customers. The layout of professional stores can be set according to the psychological setting of customers “buying their favorite brand goods at one time”. For example, when customers buy leather, suits and ties of a certain brand, they used to need to walk through several counters, but now they can buy them in one department with a professional shop-style layout.

All in all

Lattice type, flow type, island type boutique retail shelf layout for customers’ shopping experience are different. Therefore, the layout of the shelves of boutique supermarkets should be adjust according to the different layout of the business content, and a certain amount of room should be retain in the layout so that it can be adjust when needed. In short, the display shelf is actually a part of the store image, can give people a very direct visual feeling, if in order to save the cost of opening a store and blindly choose low shelves, may pull down the overall level of the store, before the specific contact with the goods, it is easy to let people think that the goods are not good.

Of course, this does not mean that the more high-end the shelves, the better, the design that the display shelves to match the overall style of the retail store, like many shops now favor retro wooden shelves, this style is more fresh and natural in the store naturally appropriate, but placed in those characteristics are more distinct, the pursuit of personality in the store easy to appear out of place, anyway, not so good effect.