Retail design helps to narrate the brand and product story, educate consumers about the pieces, and – ultimately – make the items displayed more desirable as a result. Design should indeed drive sales. A good retail design agency will know the ins and outs of retail and how a store should connect and communicate itself with its customers.
While it’s possible for retailers to create an interior design themselves, making a store work is a whole different aspect of the running of a store. There is the store design, store layout, fixtures, fittings and no end of other aspects which are vital in the way you need to assemble and prepare your shop. Some stores or retail chains also hire store design interns to create the retail settings though with an agency they tend to be appropriate staffed with specialists to help oversee all of the key ins and outs of retail design as a whole.
Without a doubt, effective retail design can have a tangible and far-reaching impact on a business. It can increase footfall and sales, ensure that a brand is correctly positioned (and here to re-align where it is not), and allow differentiation from its competitors. As customers can buy almost everything online, retail environments definitely need to offer a richer experience for consumers than ever before. The physical space can be smaller and the levels of stock can be lower but the actual experience needs to be more stimulating with the brand turning up the volume on aspects such as design, knowledge and service.
It is fair to say there isn’t actually a retailer or kind of retailer that wouldn’t be able to benefit to a good degree from investing and hiring in retail design services. From a small wedding bridal boutique to a large-scale high street name retailer, this is very much a no-brainer investment. Bridal boutiques, florists, greengrocers, bakeries, coffee shops, even hairdressers and make-up supply retailers are all making the investment into retail designs agency services to help get their brand to relay itself better. This really is big business now.
Where retail has products to sell, this is where design can help them get their sales that bit further across the line. The design does sell and this too is where and how retail design can pay for itself and prove to be a very shrewd overall investment. On the UK high street as a valid example, you only need to see the way in which Jo Malone for example has been able to revolutionize how they sell cosmetics.
The retail design also has an incredibly important role to play in positioning a brand to its consumers – and, perhaps more importantly, re-positioning it when it‘s incorrectly aligned. In detail, it is down to this design aspect that you are able to drive an association to pass footfall and in turn, make a lasting impression from the offset. Now more than ever before, retail design and hiring a retail design agency can prove a highly shrewd investment to giving your store a competitive and unique edge.
