Space Planning Concepts on retail concepts:
The objective of the retailer is to house, display and sell products and services and realise a return on investment.
Two fields are essential in the bringing about of a retail environment, marketing and design.
From the marketing field, sub-related fields are consumer behaviour, communications, the marketing mix and strategy.
The design field is concerned with translating the marketing strategy into a three dimensional built form, which takes into account all the other factors, such as function, merchandise, operations, service and image and is in essence a communication medium between buyer and seller.
Ultimately it is all these factors brought together in an integrative and supportive manner that will result in the final retail concept and its success.
The success of a retail concept will also heavily depend on the training of staff on an ongoing basis, and manuals to describe how to utilise the concept.
It is also dependant on a team of people, such as suppliers, advertising agency, other professionals and so on. The concept should take into account historic data, current market realities and prediction about the future consumer and retail business environment.
A retail concept should be far more that mere whimsical aesthetic considerations. It also needs to be innovative and cost effective, flexible and orientated towards the target market.
More importantly it also needs to differentiate itself from the competition so that customers would prefer shopping there rather than elsewhere.
The concept should not just be a look but a complete experience. To this end signage and graphic communications and visual merchandising are key elements for consideration.
Goods and services need to be presented in a way as to increase the average consumer transaction.
