Retail design focuses on creating a positive shopping experience for both consumers and retailers through practical and aesthetic aspects, including lighting, displays, and store layout. The design also extends to the store’s exterior, which should attract customers and reflect the merchandise sold.
Retail design is a highly specialized discipline based on concepts central to marketing, merchandising, advertising, ergonomics and interior design. The goal of this type of design is to create as positive a shopping experience as possible for both the consumer and the retailer. Some aspects of retail design are very practical and have to do with how merchandise is stocked. Other aspects are much more esoteric and have to do with creating a certain type of experience for a customer as they walk through the interior of the store. There are also aspects of retail design that have to do with orienting shoppers around the store.
Light fixtures are an important part of retail design. Not only must they display merchandise effectively, but they must also be convenient for the customer to use. Shelves and displays that place merchandise out of arm’s reach, for example, can be quite inconvenient. The displays themselves should also reflect the aesthetics of the products being sold.
Some stores are very open about retail design and make no effort to hide what they are trying to accomplish. Some furniture stores, for example, guide shoppers through various showrooms via arrows painted on the store’s main walkways. Other stores are more subtle and will simply create a path or series of paths by strategically placing displays and cash boxes in the store floor plan. It is common, for example, for a clothing company to split the store into two paths – one with displays of items for women and the other with displays of items for men.
In addition to creating a specific type of interior space, retail design also governs the design of the store’s exterior. It is crucial for retail design to create an exterior that draws customers into the space. There are several ways to do this and the design reflects the type of merchandise that is sold in the store. A high-end boutique, for example, might attract customers with large windows that are used for interesting product displays, while a home improvement store on a budget will likely need an exterior that provides advertising space for the low-priced items.
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