A long and narrow store: how to organize a retail space?

“We have a small store in a small town with a population of up to 30 thousand people. We know all the buyers by sight, and they also know and love our store. We mainly sell comfortable casual shoes from Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Belarus and a small fraction (3%) is men's shoes for extreme sports from Italy. The ratio of women's and men's shoes in stock - 80: 20. The sales area of ​​the store is 15,55 at 4,30 m, that is, the store is narrow and long. The facade of the store is glass, it has two entrances: automatic central doors and a standard door from the end to the right. The images developed for us by the design studio show how commercial equipment can be arranged. Tell me, how true is this arrangement, and how to display the product in order to allow customers to forget about the inconvenience and present all categories of shoes as efficiently as possible? ”

Answer Anna Balandina, Managing Partner of FCG Creative Lab: The first thing I pay attention to is the ratio of the assortment of men's shoes to women's shoes. It is disproportionate, but we will assume that this ratio is verified taking into account the characteristics of sales. Secondly, it is worth saying that the checkout location in this design project is unsuccessful: the checkout is installed directly opposite the entrance, occupying the “hottest” zone and “cooling” the entire wall. Otherwise, this wall would be completely “hot” and even serve as an internal display case, since it is clearly visible from the entrance. In addition, usually in stores of this size there are no hot and cold zones, but the corners of the store do not work well here because of the cash desk. In general, I recommend moving the ticket office to the left side of the hall, but so that the distance between it and the entrance is as large as possible. This arrangement will be the most commercial, because visitors will reach the ticket office in any case, and along the way they can see something else. Thirdly, I am confused by this partition in front of the entrance: the entrance area is the hottest retail space, and in this design project it is “eaten up” by the play between the sliding door and the partition. Ideally, this orange screen would not be in front of the entrance, but there would be a stopper table that draws attention to the models presented on it. As for the glass wall of the store, it is cold, but it can work well as a showcase. Here you now have not the most commercial trading equipment, because it is not mobile and one side of it does not allow you to see the other. The best commercial equipment in this case is a display case - that is, one that does not overlap the interior of the store when viewed from the outside and which shows shoe models from the street. It can be low, multi-tiered and not covering the entire hall.

How to arrange assortment categories in the retail space? The priority line for women should be done on the right, because according to 70% of buyers who go to the store start their inspection counterclockwise. The male zone can be made opposite the entrance, but on the left side, and arrange it separately. It should not be like a zone with a women's collection, because men never buy in women's zones. At the same time, this niche cannot be painted in dark colors, because men's shoes are dark in themselves and will disappear against such a background. It is possible to distinguish the male zone with an image, but not functional, on which the boot will be depicted, but emotional, where there is also a person’s face. Another question is in what categories to arrange shoes within the women's and men's assortment. If you promote your product among buyers through brands, and buyers really know these brands and react to them, then it makes sense to put the goods in the store in brand blocks. If these brands are unknown to the buyer, then it is better to display shoes according to functional-style groups: examine your product, understand what groups it understands and demanded by customers - for example, women's casual, men's sports, women's office - and separately present them. Here it is necessary to take into account a number of rules on how these groups are combined with each other and what should not be mixed with anything. But this is a whole block of visual merchandising, which I talk about in detail at my training on “Visual merchandising for shoe stores and accessories.”

The workshop “Visual Merchandising for Shoes and Accessories Shops” will be held in Moscow on 27-28 on January and 19-20 on February. A detailed training program can be found on the 62 page of this issue.

Responds to Maria Gerasimenko, CEO of Clever Fashion consulting company:

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Firstly, the dressing room is not very well located, but it definitely has a functional value. Winter in the Siberian city can not do without it - the store will be very cold. But if there was an opportunity to make it portable, it would be much better. It is not clear what kind of an orange screen is between the dressing room and the retail space. If this is another sliding door, then the cash desk must be moved to the left side of the store, because now it is in the hottest area. And if this is an ordinary screen, then the cash register can be left where it stands, since it combines the female and male departments, and two doors from the dressing room divide the consumer flow into two parts. Most people move counterclockwise, and given that most of the assortment is women's shoes, women will go into the right door. I would recommend giving the left part of the hall to the male zone, and then the men will go through the left door, because through the orange screen they will see an assortment of interest to them.

Secondly, the glass wall must be given under the window. A storefront is what it sells, and in the case of a street retail format, what attracts shoppers to the store. Now many shoe retailers leave store windows open for viewing from the outside instead of filling out a full-fledged showcase. This is a negative trend, and I believe that in this case it is necessary to give a glass wall for the presentation of shoes. It can be organized with the help of light cubes and multi-level structures instead of the gondolas currently standing. In certain seasons, for example, before the holidays, the window can be closed and made a plot. In any case, it is very important to make the right lighting, then the showcase will attract attention.

Wall-mounted equipment: it has constant levels, which is not very good, since you will not be able to change the length of the shelves and their location. From time to time it is useful to do so that the store surprised even regular customers. Also, this wall-mounted equipment has five shelves, but there are only three workers: on the upper and lower shelves you either don’t need to present anything at all, or you can put POS materials - these shelves are out of eye level, so you won’t be able to sell anything. If your assortment has accessories with which the shoes form a kind of capsule, then each unit of such wall-mounted equipment can be given for the presentation of one capsule. If there are no accessories, you are depriving yourself of a complex sale. I would recommend having at least some bags and belts in stock. Also, I don’t understand the purpose of the lower compartments of the wall equipment: we cannot imagine anything in them, it is also impossible to use them as drives due to the lack of doors. If you plan to store boxes there and you have a low price segment, you need to put the door.

For other details: you have a good cash desk, because behind it you can’t see the equipment for making a purchase. Full-length mirrors, standing directly to the display case, are a very gross mistake: they eat up the display space. In a shoe store, it makes sense to put small mirrors and somewhere near the wall to install a full-length mirror if the price segment requires it. It is not clear where the lateral passage on the right leads buyers. I suspect that he leads from the shopping center, as there is no dressing room in front of him. Although, given that there is a blank wall near the aisle and it leads buyers literally into the window, it might be better to block this entrance altogether and use the vacant space as a trade.