Maximising Profit with Smart Store Design

anthonycurnow.com
First Impressions

First impressions really are everything. If your business is overcrowded and untidy on entry, it is likely that the customer will not even pass through this clutter to reach ‘the good bits’ of your store. Ensuring your overall housekeeping is of a high standard (raked paths, no weeds, stock is maintained at high quality) will portray an image to the customer, which immediately affects the perception on price. It’s like the difference between going to Myer or a discount variety shop – what the customer expects is different in each experience. The better presented the store the more likely the garden centre will be able to fetch a fair price for their stock. Additionally, you can influence a customers’ mood with your overall livery or theme. This is all about consistent branding throughout every aspect of a customers interaction with your business – from catalogue to face to face sales.

Lintons Garden & Home have introduced seasonal themes such as the Summer ‘Burst Into Life’ livery. This has tied in well with the colours of seasonal stock lines and created an experience for the customer that exhibits professionalism and encourages spending.

The entrance may be referred to as the welcoming zone and it needs to have the effect of calming the customer and setting the scene for the experience which is to unfold as they explore your business. It should be well defined in its traffic flow and open enough so that customers feel welcome to come and go at their own leisure. Ideally there will always be a friendly staff person in sight of this area to greet and farewell customers – this has the added bonus of awareness and will reduce the likelihood of theft.

Layout Considerations & Category Management

Balance and Symmetry – people respond positively to symmetrical things, hence our love of formal gardens. People are also naturally inclined to turn left. With this in mind, designing your entrance and exit points is incredibly important as a means of making sure there are few ‘dead spots’ in the entrance area to your store.

Accessibility - Overall, a successful layout is one which encourages spending by guiding customers through every category of the business. In doing so, stock needs to be merchandised to encourage sales by simply making it accessible. Stock that is difficult to access will not sell, so be aware that cramming plants into a bench will have a negative effect on sales.

Gardenworld are increasingly cross merchandising their indoor house plant range and associated products to increase the chance of an add-on sale, while maintaining the accessibility of their products to the customer.

Making Use of Dead Spots and Hot Spots – A dead spot can be utilized by placing either a high selling item which customers will seek out, or alternatively using them for low turnover specialty items such as hanging baskets and wire products. Hot spots on the other hand are made to be used and abused, capitalizing on areas which customers are almost given to buy from. These are key areas throughout your nursery which your customers regularly pass by.
Additionally, locating seasonal hard good lines (fertilizers in Spring) nearby the register can be a simple way of increasing your dollar per spend by having staff up sell these goods. This does not have to be a hard sell, as the tills are a highly impulsive area in themselves and often the item will sell itself.

Merchandising Like Products – You all know what cross-merchandising is, but what is most important is ensuring that what is contained in a cross-merchandised display is relevant. With this in mind, there are particular strategies you can employ to create an effective display. One such method is merchandising 3 different plants together, all of varying attribute – foliage, flowering and structural for example, and most importantly the three plants should all have the same cultural requirements. In incorporating other hard good lines, similarly don’t confuse the customer by placing too much in a display – keep it simple and effective.

Capitalise on Top Sellers – It is a general rule that seedlings should be located at the back of the garden centre as this encourages customers to walk through your store to reach this high turnover category. Regularly reviewing what is selling and what isn’t can guide you in category placement. Native plants for example should also be located towards the back of your outdoor sales area as these too currently contribute to a significant amount of sales for many garden centres. Potted Colour is another category, similar to that of perennial lines which generally have a shorter shelf life and are impulse driven. They must be sold as quickly as possibly before quality deterioration forces discounting which impacts on sales by diminishing margin. Placement of such lines may be between the entrance and a high turnover item like seedlings. There is a reason why milk is located in the back corner of the largest of supermarkets – you pass literally thousands of items along the journey, increasing the likelihood of an impulse purchase. Don’t be afraid to move an entire category and change your whole store should you feel that it will improve the overall movement of customers through the store for the benefit of increased sales.

Category Splitting – Placing the same product in more than one location in store confuses the customer. For example, a recent trip to my local automotive store saw me seeking out some window cleaner. All cleaning products (window and tyre cleaners) were merchandised according to their brand and not use, meaning that novices like myself could not easily compare like with like.

There are always some exceptions to the rule - In most garden centres I visit, all fertilizers, chemicals and herbicides are grouped accordingly. However, with increasing environmental awareness comes a need to have environmentally friendly products highlighted as a first option.

Reducing Theft - Increase visibility by having open lines of sight and reducing blind spots throughout your garden centre. Additionally, ensure you safeguard your entrance and exit to the garden centre by locking the till and having staff working in the area at all times.

Finally, with regard to layout, the best practical step you can make is having an operational map of your store which allows you to clearly understand customer movement. In doing so, for those of you who capture categorical data, this gives you the prime opportunity to actively promote particular products which are known in previous years to be big sellers, and actively push the sales of these lines sky high based upon sound financial categorical analysis.

Colour Associations

Emotions are undoubtedly a driving force behind sales, and the use of colour can significantly encourage this. We all use red and white or red and black on sales signage as red is the most effective colour for attracting people’s attention.

With this in mind, impulsive purchase are said to occur when reds and oranges are used in store, as they are hot colours and cause the heart to run a little quicker than normal. Within the same colour spectrum, yellow similarly induces emotive feelings of optimism as it is said that the brain releases more serotonin when around yellows.

Colour preference is influenced by our standard of living; brighter bolder colours appear to attract those on a lower income, whilst those targeting higher income brackets should use more subtle colours and shades.

When it comes to branding, we all know the Golden Arches or the white tick or the red cola can. These Associations are psychologically recognized within the consumers mind and are engrained from a very early age. Generations have grown up with some of the largest corporate brands and it is their simplicity that needs to be recognized, in both their design and use of colour.

Should you believe that your overall image is impacting on sales, perhaps consider enlisting the services of a colour consultant to guide you.


Macdonalds Plants Plus Nursery utilized a colour consultant when designing their small giftware area.

Are You Making it Difficult for the Customer? A Few Final Points

Lighting - Lighting has huge benefit in indoor settings particularly, which are often dark and cold in their appearance. Lighting can have a warming effect, encouraging customers to linger and shop while also highlighting various stock lines.

Handwritten Signage – This is a pet peeve of mine and also for your customer. It reflects negatively on your overall brand and may in fact cause a decrease in sales. It’s often painful to read, unclear in its purpose and much of the time would benefit from being discarded and letting the plant sell itself.

Signage at Gisborne Nursery is simple but very effective, with no hand written signs in sight. Stock is also well spaced with labels all facing the front making it easily shopped.

Crowded Layout – Inaccessibility of stock has already been mentioned, and overall having paths not suitably wide will also decrease sales. If you can’t get a trolley (or wheelchair) through every part of your store, you might as well close your doors until you can.

Lack of Shopping Aids – Not having sufficient baskets and trolleys for customers to assist themselves in shopping can have a serious negative effect on your average dollar per spend. Offering customers a trolley or basket will encourage them to fill them, rather than walking to the counter and exiting once their hands are full.

Keep the Staff Informed

Lastly, as always, your staff need to understand the decisions you make with regard to design and layout so that they are not constantly changing things that may negatively impact on sales unknowingly. Listen to your staffs ideas and educate each other in the effort of moving forward for the betterment of your business.


References:

http://www.precisionintermedia.com/color.html
http://retail.about.com/od/storedesign/tp/store_donts.htm