SHOP FLOOR

It’s one of those things that often gets overlooked, the shop floor. At worst, the floor will be cluttered with boxes or stock waiting to be loaded onto shelves, hindering the customer journey and desire to shop.  At best, it will provide the perfect backdrop to enhance the whole retail offer and define a clear direction for the customer to take.

I am old enough and, may I add wise enough, to remember the days when department stores created pathways of vinyl flooring embedded between areas of dense pile wool carpet. Here merchandise would be proudly displayed to tempt us to step off the path, linger on the soft luscious carpet and hopefully buy what's on offer. At the time, it was all part of the strategy used by retailers to try and tempt us to spend our cash. Strangely enough, what I remember most was the smell. This incredibly expensive carpet, usually specially woven in 70cm wide strips and then sewn together, had a particular smell and, it never seemed to wear out so stayed there for decades. How things have changed and, how much more do we now understand about customers shopping habits.

Shop flooring is not just about appearance either, some finishes will speed us up while others will slow us down. What works best is creating a floor that is dramatic enough to make a statement but doesn't overpower the merchandise. Shop floors definitely shouldn’t be bland. I’ve seen far too many white goods sitting on speckled grey vinyl floors, who thought that would be a good idea, yuck!

The time has come to set the stage and give a bit more attention to the one thing that takes the most battering in your shop, the floor.

All the best

Peter

#retail   -consultant  -designer  -visualcommunicator  -educator

tel      07907 691711

email  info@artysmith2.com

#aboutme – the story so far

Images clockwise from top left -  Crown and Crumpet, Jo Malone, Kate Spade, Alexander McQueen, Weekday, Cielito Querido Cafe