Flexible 'Shop Kits' Make Retailers More Competitive with the Internet
Retailers in today’s marketplace are faced with a myriad of challenges. Competition for obviously desirable target audiences is strong; margins on most major product ranges are under extreme pressure and customer‐buying behavior is more dynamic than ever before. In addition to this, retail fit‐outs are becoming more and more expensive.
Because of this, retailers all over the country are trying to improve the overall customer experience that their stores offer to maximize the per‐customer spend from each store visit.
Most major retailers recognize that store fit‐out and product displays play a major role in maximizing customer spend. When done well, a good fit‐out can ensure:
1. the consistency of the brand image;
2. allow for the display of complimentary products; and
3. extend the purchases of each customer in-store in powerful ways.
But retail design and fit‐out has become an expensive, architect driven approach that needs to be undertaken on a store‐by‐store basis, even across major retail chains. And, in many cases, in the current economic environment it fails to yield a dazzling cost benefit.
So the industry is looking for a new solution to this new problem, before it becomes systemic. And, it appears that the solution is a design that improves customer experience and decreases costs of fitout and operation. Enter the “Shop Kit”.
Modular retail fitouts or ‘shop kits’ are a new, but rapidly emerging phenomenon that can be seen in a number of our major retail chains, making retail fitouts more functional, and more affordable. We spoke to one of the firms bringing them to the fore, dynamic retail design firm, Design Design who has been responsible for the fitout designs of many of the chain stores we know so well throughout the world including The Athetes Foot (100+ stores), EB Games, (400+ stores), Triumph, Footlocker, Wild Cards and Gifts, Pizza Hut, Nandos Restaurants, Noodle Box, Mrs Fields and many more.
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