By Colton Eva
Having a place on the high street isn’t solely about retail. Inevitably, brick-and-mortar stores are also part of the community and stylise the local area, either adding or detracting from local culture and aesthetics. As such, retailers should make efforts to constantly keep in mind their local contributions and impact, a significant part of which involves ensuring their retail space is full of life.
Having a retail space that feels clean, new, and, as such, exciting, is also important for continued engagement from customers too. New customers will be drawn in by vibrant places, especially those that continue to maintain a buzz among loyal customers who are regularly enthusiastic about the brand’s high street presence. As such, and drawing from the experience of successful brands, we’re sharing five great ways of breathing new life into a retail space.
Innovate
Making technological advancements within a retail environment inevitably helps to make a brand feel modern. Simple adjustments, such as refreshing checkout services or digital displays, can help to make a store feel more accommodating and efficient. The improvements that follow also tend to be operational too, with customers feeling more comfortable engaging in transactions.
More forward-thinking advancements are, understandably, more expensive but they can be particularly exciting too. Some smaller concept stores have already begun, for example, to make use of augmented reality.
New Designs
Refreshing a store’s aesthetics, such as with new displays, interior designs, or shop furniture can revitalise a retail space. Any stylish spruce, from new mannequins to colourful stand offs, can invigorate an environment with colour and match new brand themes. Returning customers respond particularly well to redesigns too, as they demonstrate sustained brand energy.
Staff Training
Sales representatives continue to be one of the most important aspects of retail space, building brand relationships with customers. While personalities can remain appealing, it is easy for staff members to fall into a routine or begin to feel alienated from a brand over time. Hosting training sessions and team-building exercises are a great way to ensure this doesn’t happen.
Pop-Up Events
Temporary events, such as those that take place within a retail space, are a brilliant way to ignite interest in your brand. Whether you are launching a new product, offering a product-related experience, or simply seeking to celebrate a seasonal event, such as Christmas. Promotional events, especially those where customers can gain access to limited offers, are particularly effective at drawing in shoppers and double as an advertising opportunity while simultaneously affirming a brand’s value on the high street.
New Displays
Brand redesigns are often seen to be costly endeavours but this doesn’t need to be the case. Instead, incremental changes can be made, those that don’t require entire overhauls of logos and aesthetics. Window displays are a great place to start, as are posters and paints too, all of which can be easily, even regularly, refreshed to add a constant new vitality to a retail space.
For help understanding your customers and how to use data to meet their needs, please see the resource below.
Infographic provided by Riveron – accounting advisory professionals
