Layout and Design Tips for Small To Medium Retailers

As an experienced commercial property management team in Melbourne, we often see how ineffectively small and medium retailers use their space. We are here to tell you that in the competitive retail sector, even small businesses can thrive with a well-designed space.

Here are our top tips on using good layout and design methods for the most impact.

Strategies for Optimising Your Retail Layout

• Creating a clear path: Creating a logically flowing pathway through your store helps guide shoppers to more parts of the store, providing them with the best opportunity to find what they are looking for and some additional items they were not necessarily looking for.
• Making use of vertical space: Make the most of your space’s height by incorporating vertical storage spaces for excess products. Doing so will keep the floor space clear of unnecessary clutter. Customers enjoy wide walking spaces and do not like feeling “hemmed” in. 
• Attracting attention to focal points: Create interesting displays at key points in your layout to draw the customer in and highlight your best products or items on special. 
• Careful product placement: Planning the placement of products is vital. It must be logical and based on strategic information about your customer’s buying patterns. For example, place high-value items at eye level and consider adding an impulse buying section on the way to the pay points.
• Using colour and lighting to your advantage: Use lighting to set an appropriate mood in your store that aligns with the feeling you want your customers to experience. Experiment with colours that are complementary to your brand colours but also evoke the right kind of emotions in the shopper. For example, energetic colours for the sporting goods section or calming and sedated shades in the fitting rooms.
• Using technology: Digital signage and interactive displays can be used to share information with the shopper and to promote products in a different way, all serving to attract and hold the customer’s attention.

Regular Evaluation and Adjustment

Your store layout and design strategies are not set in stone. As products or customers change, so you will need to adapt and adjust your store layout from time to time. Regular shoppers can become bored with a layout that always stays the same. Be aware, though, that making drastic changes can also alienate regular customers when they cannot find their favourite products in their regular location.

By planning the layout of your retail space, you can benefit from increased sales, an enhanced customer experience and improved efficiency — all good reasons to get the design and layout right!

For all your commercial property management needs in Melbourne, contact LeaseWise today. Our team of specialist retail property consultants is standing by to help small to medium-sized retailers with all their tenancy requirements.