Convenience Retail Part One: The Importance of Layout and Design

Convenience stores (C-Stores) have become an essential part of our daily lives, offering a variety of products and services around-the-clock, even delivered directly to our doors. But what makes a C-Store so appealing?  The answer lies in its layout and design. A strategic store layout and appealing design is the foundation of a successful convenience store. It determines how customers navigate through the space, influences their buying decisions, and ultimately affects your sales.

In this three-part article, we investigate the art of convenience store design, exploring each factor that contributes to creating an exceptional store and ultimately shopping experience.

Shopping Flow

Shopping flow, or customer flow is simply effectively guiding and overseeing the customers’ movement through the store. Customer flow optimisation involves removing obstacles, such as queues at the checkout, that would make c-store shopping a little less convenient! It also involves creating product displays that are eye catching to draw the customer into the store as well as proper signage so that customers, especially first-time customers, don’t feel lost or overwhelmed. To optimise shopping flow, it is key for retailers to know what their customers are most interested in and give it prominent placement for ease of access.

In our increasingly fast-paced world, shoppers are mostly pushed for time and distracted by external influences such as emails, text messages, social media updates, their kids, so the competition for consumers’ attention is more crucial than ever.

Decompression Zone

When a shopper enters a store, retailers need to instantly change their mind set to a calmer state, allowing them to have a positive shopping experience and ultimately spend more.  That is why the “decompression zone” is so important to allow the consumer time to adjust from the outside ‘noise’ and focus on the actual shopping experience without distraction.

The decompression zone should be at the entry point of the store. It should be calm, as in void of merchandise, promotion, signage, staff and use sensory details which are actively different from the outside environment such as lighting and texture. This will subconsciously give the consumer the time and space to adjust to the store and allow them to focus on their shopping.

The size of the zone depends on how much floor space is available, but it should be a minimum of 10–15 feet and scale up accordingly with the store.

Is it really worth the trade off in terms of loss of selling space you may think? 

However, the small loss of selling space can actually be outweighed.

If a decompression is done correctly, the consumer will not notice it at all and can yield positive results in terms of turnover. Yet, if it is done poorly or not at all, this can have a negative effect on the retailer’s bottom line.

There are elements that should be considered in a successful decompression zone, such as lighting, floor textures, air temperature and ventilation, all of which are important to activate the perception of entering a different environment. Items to be removed from the area are merchandise, shelving, promotion and signage, to achieve a sense of calm.

Examples of successful decompression zones:

If you want to find out more on how to effectively plan your retail space to influence consumer behavior, contact The Jordon Group, specialists in retail design and space management since 1965.  

Part two will explore the importance of technology and foodservice in convenience retail, stay tuned 🛒