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When you start contemplating making changes to your retail store design, there are a few store design basics to keep in mind. If a store is going to be remodeled, I like to start by doing enough research to know what works well with the current design and what doesn’t. How do people move around the store? What are the current design elements that need to be saved or replicated in the new retail store design?
Here are some retail store design basics to keep in mind: There has been research done, much of it by Paco Underhill and his company Envirosell, which gives us some very basic principles to adhere to. For example, there should be an area inside the front door that has no product display. This area of perhaps 12 or 14 square feet has been called the “decompression zone.” The decompression zone allows customers to enter your store and adjust to their surroundings. The decompression zone, when done correctly, communicates a “welcome” to your customers and allows them to make their first judgments about your retail world. Your first judgments are usually the ones that stick so this adjustment zone is very important.
Another phenomenon that Underhill has observed is what he has termed “invariant right”. This refers to the fact that when given the opportunity, people prefer, and most often do, to move to the right after entering a store. When I’m designing a store, I always try to encourage people to move in the direction they feel most comfortable with. By adhering to this principle whenever possible, I notice that the store “feels” better. When a store “feels” better, it operates at a higher level and produces better sales and additional profit.
When I’m designing a floor plan, a couple of additional store layout basics I consider are balance and symmetry. Most people react positively to both balance and symmetry. I have tried experiments where I presented different designs for the same store, some were balanced, some were not, some were symmetrical and some were not. As retailers looked at the various plans, I was surprised at how often they preferred balance and symmetry, even though we hadn’t discussed those topics at all. I think the preference is transferred to the shopping experience. I also know that most shoppers wouldn’t notice the subtle differences and would probably say the store “felt” better. After all is said and done, shopping wars is one of the stores that “feels the best” to its customers. Never forget how important retail store layouts are to the feel of a store.