Are you are planning your new ‘Shop of the Future?’
Will it be more creative, more beautiful, more engaging and more exciting than ever? Well that will largely depend on whether it will be integrated and woven, more than ever, into the strategic and operational fabric of your modern retail business.
The fact is there’s much more to successful store concepts than interior design.
Be aware of what really makes a successful physical retail shop.
In my experience, commercial and brand success is down to 75% Astute Strategies & 25% Creative Concepts!
The physical shop is changing rapidly. Its role is no longer just about selling physical product, but about delivering services and fulfilment across channels.
The evolution of the ‘Retail Hub.’
In essence the ‘shop’ or ‘store’ is evolving into a ‘Retail Hub.’ The retail hub is built around 4 integrated areas. The ‘shopper paradise’ is still most often the centrepiece consisting of product displays and associated customer service. The ‘Collection Crossroads’ satisfies the needs of the omnichannel shopper and facilitates the collection, delivery, return and exchange of goods. Ironically this is also now a main driver of shop traffic.
The third element is the local ‘Community Hub’ which uses shop space to form links with the customer and local communities, from staging events and running courses, to providing a setting and showcase for community initiatives.
Finally, retail hubs are increasingly using excess and flexible shop space as revenue ‘Business Centres’ allowing the cost-effective delivery of retail places. These include business and community offices and working space, as well as residential use for shop colleagues and local communities.
Your shop design and visual merchandising can no longer just be built around the product assortment that you sell. Nor can brands & retailers simply use technology to fill both physical and emotional spaces. Businesses must build space around people, around the customer, the community and the shop colleague.
It is the sophisticated and enlightened hybridisation of space that is already forming the commercial and brand success stories of the new generation of physical shops.
We offer strategic advice, creative design, operational planning, and collaboration on the development and delivery of physical shops, across all elements that now form the retail hub.
If you want to get your physical ‘shop of the future’ strategy ball rolling, please get in touch. I would be happy to share with you some typical project templates, schedules, and case studies, and a lot of insights, experience and inspiration.