Sometimes it’s hard for retailers to see their store through
their customers’ eyes but this is vital if they want to maximise sales. Why,
because ninety percent of customers will do the same thing when they enter a
shop. They’ll walk in the same direction, stop in the same places, look at the
same shop displays and see the same things. If you know your customers shopping
habits then your store layout and merchandising plan should match.
The problem is when you’re working in the same space for
a long period of time you stop seeing, you start to assume things and you’re
brain uses past memory to fill in the gaps, which may not match the present.
If you’re a retailer struggling to get a fresh
perspective on how you do things here’s a few things to try.
To start with if you want to see what your customers are
seeing create a visual customer journey by walking up to your shop door and around
your shop with a camera or mobile phone in hand, just point and click. Photographs
capture a contained image so it’s much easier to see things in this restricted
way. When you look at your finished journey you’ll probably be surprised at
what you see and, what you don’t.
The second part of this exercise is slightly trickier
because the chances are you can only do this when you’re not too busy, unless
you can call in a few favours from friends. Firstly, sketch out a plan of your
shop including the area outside leading to the door and take plenty of copies.
Try to record customers’ movements on your plan, mark small
arrows for where they stop and where you think they’re looking and larger arrows
for their travel direction. Even if your shop is tiny this will still be
useful. Make sure you record the information as accurately as possible and make
a note of the date and times of day. You should finish up with a few dense areas of mini
arrows within the overall space.
Once you’ve evaluated your findings you should have a
good idea of the important areas of your shop, hot-spot selling spaces, the
best places for communicating information and the general traffic flow of your
customers. The longer you do this for and the more often you do it the more
accurate the final information will be and this shouldn't be a one hit wonder, it’s something to be repeated throughout the year at regular intervals.
With accurate information on how your customers shop your
shop you can fine tune your shop layout, your merchandising plan and how you
merchandise. Even small changes can make a difference to how much customers
spend so don’t miss out…
All the best
Peter
#visualcommunicator #retailconsultant
#designer
tel 07907 691711
email info@artysmith2.com
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