The Layout in Your Small Retail Business is Critically Important

In a small retail business you must learn to use your space effectively.

A small retail business owner should know the value of his space and allocate his space accordingly.  Your trade association should be able to give you the percentage of space that should be allocated to the different categories of merchandise in your store.  Learn from the experts and don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

Items in the front of the store should be merchandised with the most profitable items or classifications of merchandise.  The front of the small retail business is the most important space because it is the most valuable to the small retail business owner.

You should locate impulse and convenience items in the highest traffic area.  Cash register areas are a good location for impulse items.  The small retail business owner should place sale and/or special items in a wide aisle in a special display or “obstacle” rack for effective merchandising.  Customers will become accustomed to looking for specials in that particular location.

Your objective in determining the layout of your small retail business is to draw customers through your space, while exposing them to your merchandise and services the entire time they are in your store.  One good ideal is to separate departments by light and dark color and value of the wall cover and/or flooring.  Other tricks used by small retail businesses are unfinished aisles, walls that do not touch the ceiling, and limited use of carpeting to create open flowing spaces that allow more customers to move freely.  The small retail business owner must decide if he/she wants a clean uncluttered look to create more low-key shopping experience or a layout that creates a sense of urgency – one that has a busy stimulating atmosphere that encourages the shoppers to be aggressive and go after what they want.

A key factor in the small retailer’s store ambiance is circulation.  Customers should feel free to move though the store freely and fluidly.  But you also must maximize a customers’ exposure to displays and merchandise.  Today’s customers have less time to shop.  The easier it is for customers to move around, the more they will buy.  By keeping your small retail store open and airy with wide aisles and ample directional signs you will help shoppers find what they want by themselves.  A well-thought out layout can save you on selling costs by making your store more self-service.

The layout of your small retail business depends on the amount of space available and the types of products and service offered.  Everything must have its place.  Whether you have dressing rooms, personal shoppers, open displays or locked cases you must always think in terms of making it easy to buy what you are selling!  This means the giving your customer the ability to find the right size and color, the price, the ability to try something on with convenient and well lit dressing rooms with full length mirrors, having someone available to complete the sales transaction and taking the purchase home.

Customers entering you small retail business should find a main aisle.  Fixtures on the main aisle are generally more productive than other aisles in your store, and they are more effective in catching your customer’s attention.  Other aisles in your store should be off to the side.  Counters at the end of the aisles – know as “end caps” in retail world – are also excellent spots for special displays, sale items, new items, and “loss leaders”.

Studies show that customers who are “browsers” tend to mover counterclockwise around a small retail business, and those customers knowing exactly what they want will probably move clockwise.

Many people interested in opening a small retail business are attracted to self-service operations because of their customers’ preference, the high selling costs, the normal high turnover rate associated with most retail operations,.  Today most consumers like to have the freedom to look over merchandise and “kick the tires” so to speak without assistance.

To make it easy for customers to serve themselves, a self-serve small retail business should include shopping baskets or carts.

You should understand by now the importance of the proper layout to relate to the type of customers you are trying to attract.  It can be the difference between success and failure.