This article will tell you about the steps involved in the retail design process. Investing in good retail design can help to improve your re-branding process and potentially draw in more customers. Whenever retail brands choose to change their brand image, they might incur large costs especially if the brand owns many different stores. However, when done cleverly, a well-executed retail design process can help to pull in sales and speak to the right target audience.
Beyond Interior Design
Oftentime, interior designers are focused mainly on following a blueprint, or to make the place seem aesthetically pleasing to the eye. However, they might neglect the commercial aspect of their designs. Designing the interior of a retail store involves considerations of things such as how to increase sales and how to improve brand loyalty. A well-designed place that has accounted for these factors can help a retail business by improving the consistency of the brand image, educate potential customers of products, and be impactful by improving the visibility of the brand.
The Retail Design Process
Retail designers normally use a structured method when they want to execute designs that include the commercial aspect of things. Below is the 8-step process that can help you to learn about the necessary steps in implementing a creative and yet effective retail design project.
Step 1: Briefing
For the first step, it is important that you or your marketing director clearly communicates what your brand wants to do exactly to the retail designer. You should most definitely inform your retail designer about who your fiercest business competitors are and the target audience of your products. You should inform them about the spatial constraints that your stores might face so that they know what they are dealing with from the get-go.
Step 2: Auditing
After the brief, your retail designer will usually audit your store or pick a few of your stores to highlight certain issues and design opportunities that you might not see initially. During the audit, you might also conduct an audit of your key competitors.
Step 3: First Concept Design
The moment that the direction has been set, your retail designer will most probably give you a couple of design concepts for you to think about. You can take this chance to figure out if these designs can help you to attain the mood and ambience that you want for your retail outlet. These concept designs are usually displayed in a 3D software that can help you to better visualize the layout of your store and how it might look with customers.
Step 4: Pilot Store
If you need to conduct a change in retail designs across several outlets, having a pilot store test would be very beneficial. This is because it can help you to test the design executions that you plan to implement. This can simply be a simulated space or it could also be a relaunch of an existing outlet that you have. Typically, technical construction drawings will be drawn up for pilot stores. You can use this opportunity to see if the materials used, such as wood veneers, or moss walls are suitable for the look you are going for.
Step 5: Implementation
If the launch of your pilot store is successful, you can then proceed to carry out renovations. However, the most important thing is that there is sufficient quality control to ensure consistency.