Last Mile 5category Layouts

8/8/2019 Last Mile 5category Layouts

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Last mile retail5

Displays connects products categories with contexts

Store design is a means of creating long-term competitive advantage versus other retailers.

Once a customer crosses the threshold of the store, the retailer has to bring him to closer to theproduct and brand displays, and convert him into a shopper by nudging him into evaluating

merchandise. Design plays a role at each step of this shopping journey. Reflect on your last

shopping trip to a supermarket or an apparel store. Did you browse all the aisles or fixtures of the

store? Doubtful. Sorenson1suggests that an average shopping trip to a supermarket covers only

25% of the store. Looking at this data in another way, the retailer lost a potential opportunity to

sell goods displayed in 75% of the store. Reflect again on your store visit. Did you spend time

examining all the merchandise in the visited areas of the supermarket? Not really. You focused

on what you needed and what caught our eyes. A good store design encourages customer

movement through the store, increasing time spent inside the store, and motivating / enabling

merchandise evaluation through productive displays. To use the language of retail, store design

improves the conversion of customers to shoppers, and the conversion shoppers into

consumers. Store design also influences both the fixed and variable costs of retail operations.

The impact on fixed cost as depreciation is direct and visible. The long-term impact on sales

productivity and operational costs is less obvious, embedded in the opportunity cost of lost sales

and increase in tasks of the retail staff to keep the store displays filled and in pristine condition

during store operational hours.

The ideas that undergird the development of a retail design and layout are based upon how

customers see, understand, and interpret product categories and brands in the store,influence of product and brand displays on consumer behavior through the store, engagement

and interactions of customers with displays, and tasks of the retail staff in working the supply

chain.

As described earlier a retail store is a tangible manifestation of the intent of retailer, his

communication to his targeted customers through a collection of products and brands in an

ambience. The store design determines how well the message gets across to consumers. At a

rational level, do the customers understand the logic of the products, categories, and brands

displayed, and at a more emotional connotative level, do the customers identify with the brands

based upon the lifestyle, and image depicted in the store. If the consumers understand andidentify with the product and brand presentation, and merchandise organization and store layout

seems logical, they get to know where to find products in the store, then they use store signs and

paths to find the products that interest them in the store.

1Sorensen, Herb. (2003). The Science of Shopping. Accessible at http://www.sorensen-

associates.com/insights.html#WP


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At a rudimentary level a retail store is a collection of product offerings arranged to give meaning

to customers. The first step in developing a store layout is to understand the logic that forms the

basis of defining and creating product categories by answering the following questions:

What is a category? What is the meaning of a grouping of categories? What is the thinking behind presenting categories at the store? What does a display do? How?

What is a category in retail?

Table 1 has four photographs of a cell phone retailer. Clockwise the top left photo is the display

of Sony Ericsson phones, top right are cell phones classified for use based on functionality in this

case business. Bottom right is a display of fashionable phones based on physical

characteristics. Bottom left photograph shows two displays, one classified as essential (basicfeatures) and the other as multimedia.

Table 1 Different approaches to cell phone displays

a) Display by brand b) Display by cell phone use

c) Display by cell phone functionality d) Display by cell phone appearance


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A category of products in retail is an agglomeration of products using some common theme or

attribute. The definition of the category identifies the basis by which products can belong to or

be excluded from the category. In figure 1-a brand name Sony Ericsson is the basis of

presenting a cluster of cell phones on the display fixture. In figure 1-b the same product cell

phones are presented based on their features that enable the phones to be used as business

phones, the functionality becoming the categorizing and differentiating feature. An important

characteristic of the categorizing process is that the feature that creates the cluster also serves as

a means of differentiating one cluster of similar products from another cluster. The products in a

category should be perceived as homogenous on the criterion with a certain amount of

differentiation across other similar product categories. A cell phone that is classified as

essential in figure 1-c will have all the basic features like voice communication, and messaging.

A business cell phone will have all the essential features and have additional features that will

skew the overall functionality of the phone towards business e.g. emails, and office applications.

The criterion which serves as a means of differentiating products in one category e.g. essential

may not be important in another category e.g. business. Consider another example. Kitchenutensils can be grouped either by brand, as is often seen in a department store environment like

Macys or J C Penney, or their functional use, as is seen in Walmart or Target. The department

stores believe that their customers visit them because of their brand promise and start their

buying process brand-first; compare brands before products. The superstores believe that their

customers follow a buying process that starts with the functionality of the product; their promise

is quality at a low price, and not brands at a cheaper price.

The utility of the categorization process is manifested in the way it eases the customer choice

process. In the cell phone example a brand-oriented customer will find functional displays

(Figure 1-b, c, and d) tedious. He will take time to understand the logic of display and then mayhave to crisscross across displays comparing products, brands, and features. Categories in retail

should be based upon identifying steps and basis of consumer choice process.

How should categories be displayed?

Retailers display products in categories and the category-structure, the way categories are laid

out in the store, their proximity or distance, and presentation, is a cue in triggering consumer

behavior inside the store. I use fashion as a category to show how this idea can be implemented.

Fashion categories can be developed around gender, style (classic versus trendy, etc.), brand, and

function (formal, casual, and sportswear, etc.). The buying of clothes is not a stable and pre-

defined process. Each shopper does it in his own way. At a macro-level it can be visualized as an

outcome of interaction between the shopper and display presentation, of the imagination of

the shopper about how the product will appear when draped, and his own self-identity or

perception of self vis--vis what fashion means to him. A retailer displays a piece of clothing


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but the customer mentally transforms the piece from the shop context to his own identity. Shop

floor is a place where fashion is interpreted by each shopper from his perspective. The job of a

retailer is to create a presentation that assists or enables the interpretation. Table 2 shows the

display of Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Ralph Lauren introduced the idea of lifestyle

merchandising, of showing products in a context that seeks to evoke the aspirational brand

lifestyle. Ralph Lauren stores create an English club ambience, with Mahogany panels and

leather sofas, etc., or the Polo lifestyle. Tommy Hilfiger targeted a younger hip-hop multi-

cultural customer, offering similar products as Ralph Lauren, slightly cheaper but with a fashion

edge. The in-store visual is more contemporary looking with the signature Tommy White

walls. Both Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger have used visual cues drawn from social

experiences, English Club and Zest in casual fashion to visually position their brands at the

store because the context of the brand identity and customer identity is the larger society.

Table 2 Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger2

Ralph Lauren3

The starting point of fashion categories is gender, with clothes for the two genders displayed

separately.

After this obvious choice the retailer can then either create areas for each brand, made distinctive

by use of special fixtures, graphics, flooring and lighting (like Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren

shown in Table 2), or can create a more generic fashion display area that stocks all the products

and brands without a strong visual separation. When the customer sees a distinct brand area with

its own visual identity, the products and the context creates an image in his mind of what thebrand owner considers a meaningful association of brand and image. See Table 3 for examples of

Shop-in-shops in Saks. In the generic display the different brands are seamlessly interlocked and

any differences the customers discern are based upon visual presentation of the brands using

2http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/fashion/28CRITIC.html

3http://theshophound.typepad.com/the_shophound/ralph_lauren/


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Table 3 Shop-in-shops in Saks4

Table 4 M&S generic clothing displays are shown

5

6

4http://www.paulpelssers.com/category/new-store-openings/page/3/5

http://www.gands.co.uk/page/news/marks_spencer_witney_october_2009/63,0,1,0.html6

http://www.trimorya.com/en/project/detail/marks-spencer-retail-store-dybenko-st.-petersburg


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mannequins / graphics / photos to give character to the product commodity. See Table 4 where

photos of Marks & Spenser generic clothing displays are shown. Marks & Spenser have their

own brands like Per Una, Portfolio, Autograph, and Classic that they use to create a degree of

visual separation at the store level through signage and graphics, not as sharp as the shop-in-shop

using completely different architecture - fixtures, flooring, lighting, and ceilings.

Planning a collection of categories

My first design assignment was for a department store in Dubai. I was confronted by many

questions - How to arrange the brands and categories in the store? Was there a logic I could use?

Should I develop the layout from the retailer or customer perspective? Will these two

perspectives give the same result? Do consumers understand the structure of the store layout

structure, does it communicate meaning, and if yes, how and what? How do I evaluate different

layout options?

None of these questions have obvious answers. And the questions have recurred as I have

worked on designs of specialty stores, cafes, and supermarkets, and implemented the store

designs of some big international brand names. Prevalent dominant advice on store layout, based

on a premise that customers who shop in an entire store buy more than those who shop in only

selected areas, emphasizes manipulation ofcustomers by pulling and pushing them into

different areas of a store by using the layout and displays. This is an oversimplification of ideas

guiding retail store design. Retail store layout is a multifaceted issue. It has to integrate and

balance often divergent retailer and customer perspectives; a retailer wants to a customer to be

guided and stay trapped in the store whereas the customer wants quick-shopping, and

doesnt like feeling entrapped. Also retail layouts are grounded in the type of retail businessand the principles of store layout applied to supermarkets with 40,000 skus and library-style aisle

displays may only be simplistically applicable to department stores and specialty boutiques with

customized fixtures and 1,000 SKUs trying to portray a unique image to customers. Retail store

design also has fixed investment implications - it is difficult to change once executed, and

impacts operations and productivity long term.

I develop retailerlogic to category layout attempting to balance store functionality, store

image, and customer issues. Emphasis is on four issueshow does a retailer decide product

category placements on the shop floor, which categories should be placed contiguously, and does

it make a difference for the retailer and the customer. I first use examples of supermarkets and

then of department stores.

A retail store is where customer and retailer perspectives have to match. For customers food

shopping is considered as a chore even though it is focused on the family and is a sub-conscious

expression of filial love. At a prosaic level customers define two wants from a food shopping


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experience - convenience and rapid shopping. This constrains the supermarkets from laying out

the store following the traditional principles of store layout, and shepherding customers

through. If they did this they would have a high number of inconvenienced customers.

Supermarkets have challenges of their own. They face increased competition and margin

compression pressure. The need of higher margins has impelled supermarket diversifications into

prepared foods. This has triggered the emergence of one-stop shops, the supercenters, where a

customer can get a wide range of product categories under one roof. It is common to see cafes,

specialized bakeries, and international cuisine outlets integrated with supermarkets. This has

impacted supermarket layouts. Increasing product categories have required retailers to creatively

rework store layouts to make shopping pleasurable, giving customers a new reason to linger in

the store.

Supermarkets have begun to use all three generic retail layout strategiesgrid, free flow, and

boutiquein store design. Figure 1 presents the store map of Wegmans and Wholefoods Market.

Figure 1 Store maps of Wegmans and Wholefoods

www.wegmans.com
http://www.wegmans.com/http://www.wegmans.com/http://www.wegmans.com/


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http://wholefoodsmarket.com/storesbeta/sanmateo/store-map-2/

The two dimensional store maps dont do justice to the size and scale of these two supermarkets.

See photos in Figure 2 (yet to be accessed). The store map suggests that the supermarkets use a

free flow approach to fixture layout in some departments like produce, deli, and cheese. The

random fixture layout presenting a variety of products resembles a street market. It is visually

attractive, encourages browsing and draws customers deeper into the innards of the store. The

layout strategy is also a function of the product being presented. Fresh produce and preparedfoods are non-standard and require touch and see before purchase. As varieties of cheeses

increase visual presentation and sampling requires closer customer interaction during purchase.

For bakery products olfactory factors also come into play. Supermarket layouts are increasingly

creating in-store environments in residential neighborhoods that replicate the feel and ambience

of farmer markets to evoke a perception of freshness in minds of customers. This strategy is

reinforced in the adoption of boutiquelayout strategy within the supermarket by creating


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individual specialty shops within the supermarketsthe market caf, wokery, the sushi bar, and

patisserie. See photos in Figure 3 (yet to be accessed). The choice of boutique layout option in a

supermarket environment has strategic undertones. When a supermarket begins to sell prepared

foods its competitive space increases and includes food restaurants because customers can

choose between visiting a stand-alone restaurant or the supermarket. For customers to choose

supermarkets over more traditional alternatives supermarkets have to create perceptions of

serving products comparable or superior in terms of quality, taste, and variety. The boutique

layout, distinctive and aesthetically appealing, with live cooking and accessible chefs, evokes

both a separation and integration with the supermarket; separation from the normative image of

supermarkets, products sold in the shop-in-shop are different and superior, and yet integrated

using freshness and quality ingredients. Supermarkets use grid layout of fixtures for product

categories like grocery, non-food, and frozen. Parallel aisles utilize space effectively and create

maximum opportunities for exposure of merchandise.

Layout Categories Retailer perspective Consumer perspective

GridGrocery, frozen, and

non-food

Efficient space utilization,effective merchandise

presentation and economic

engineering

Consumer choice of packaged

products

Free Flow Produce / deliAttractive merchandisepresentation

Product categories require

see, sample, touch, and

select by customers

BoutiquePrepared foods,

bakery, butchery

Need to differentiate from

traditional supermarket

quality

Is within supermarket so fresh

ingredients and has specialist

chefquality and fresh

The functionality of such a differential store layout strategy for different categories adopted by

supermarkets is supported by analogous research on consumer perceptions of shop-in-shops and

islands for a category like apparel.7

Shop-in-shops or separate islands within larger stores are

perceived by customers as signals ofquality, distinctiveness, and assurance, and were

preferred for product categories like clothing where uncertainty of quality and purchase risk

is high not unlike specialty prepared foods in supermarkets. For other products like health and

beauty where brand name is often an important factor in consumer choice-making customers

preferred products displayed on fixtures with brand names. See photos in Figure 4. This has a

direct influence on store design. Consumers tend to emphasize the utilitarian value (such as

convenience) when they shop for household and some grocery items, but to focus on hedonic

7Hart, C., and Davies, M. (1996). The location and merchandising of non-food in supermarkets.InternationalJournal of Retail & Distribution Management. Volume 24, Number 3, pg. 1725


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value (such as fun) when they shop for books, perfumes and fashion. Thus, a grid layout that

works well for a household section may not be suitable for an apparel section in a store.8

Retailers have to adopt a deliberate strategy to category and merchandise placement in the store.

The strategy is developed based upon how he wants consumers to travel through the store, how

he wants customers locate, evaluate and choose categories and brands, and how he wants

customers feel at a psychic level to merchandise layout. A word of caution; merchandise layout

is not an exact science, is done once and remains fixed forever. Layouts evolve. Retailers tweak

store layouts till they achieve desired space productivity goals.

Figure 4Brands used on Supermarket displays in some categories

Three generic store layout principles, the principles of circulation, coordination, and convenience

guide the development of store layouts.

Reflect on your last visit to a supermarket. Did you visit each and every aisle? The top image of

figure 5 shows a layout of a supermarket and the bottom figure shows customer movement

through the store. The darkest shading indicates high traffic whereas some aisles scarcely get any

customers. Left to their own devices, consumers would prefer to shop around the perimeter of

stores and, consequently, these areas tend to be more congested than central aisles. Congestion is

intensified at major centers of attraction, e.g. delicatessen and fresh foods, which are placed

around the store perimeter to enable easy servicing. The principle of circulation identifies how

merchandise grouping can facilitate traffic flow throughout the store by encouraging circulationof the customers through the different departments.

8Floch, Jean-Marie (1988). The Contribution of a Structural Semiotics to the Design of a Hypermarket,International Journal of Research in Marketing, 4 (3), 233-52.


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The principle of coordination focuses on arranging merchandise to promote complementary or

coordinated sales based upon a premise that combining goods in space is suggestive to

customers and induces them to consider presented options locating slow selling merchandise,

that which the retailer wants to push, with fast-selling merchandise will create a momentum

affect.

Similarly the premise of the principle of convenience is to develop store and product layout

based upon the shopping convenience of customers. Small format convenience stores epitomize

this principle where customers can get in and out very fast.

Let us examine how these principles are reflected in actual supermarket layouts. In both

Wegmans and Whole Foods, customers enter either through the produce or the freshly prepared

foods departments. The displays, fixtures, and aisle spacing pulls customers inwards, and

guides them to follow a racetrack (in Whole Foods) or the rear aisle (in Wegmans) around the

store periphery. Wegmans and Whole Foods differ in the positioning of the freshly preparedfoods; Wegmans creates an exclusive area with seating whereas Whole Foods integrates the

prepared foods area with the store race track periphery. Figure 6 is the layout of Carrefour

hypermarket in Dubai and Walmart in the USA. Carrefour has placed produce, bakery, butchery,

and prepared foods on the left corner of the 100,000 sq. ft. store. The main entrance is towards

the right side of the store through the hard goods section along a walkway that displays

promotional merchandise. Customers are constrained to use the three main aisles in the center of

the store from right to left to reach the fresh and frozen sections of the store. Carrefour has a

secondary entrance, with a narrow three foot walkway, towards the left of the store. Walmart has

two entrances. It places the produce, grocery, bakery, and deli on the right of the store. One store

entrance has direct access to this section. The soft and hard goods in Walmart are laid out arounda race track.


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Figure 5 Circulation efficiency of supermarkets 9

9Larson, Jeffrey S., Bradlow, Eric T., and Fader, Peter S. (2004).An Exploratory Look at Supermarket ShoppingPaths. Accessible at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1293.pdf


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Figure 6 Layout of Carrefour

Layout of Walmart10

10http://www.flickr.com/photos/24778615@N08/4904858624/

EntranceProduce,

Bakery,

Butchery


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The supermarkets are designed to draw customers into the fresh produce with forced

circulation imposed on customers through butchery, fishery, deli, bakery, dairy, and frozen. In

contrast hypermarkets, much larger in size than supermarkets, have created destination corners of

the store where all these departments, are clustered. Hypermarkets also have wider aisles (rear,

middle and front for Carrefour, and race track for Walmart) when compared with supermarkets.

Role of store design in influencing in-store consumer behavior

The physical design of store space does influence human behavior in the store. Customers are

influenced by store features like lighting, music, design and dcor, etc. Different elements of a

store evoke diverse emotions and perceptions in customers and these impacts the time they spend

in the store and how comfortable they are while shopping. The pragmatic retailer is keener on

understanding the impact of store design on in-store circulation and consumer-product

interactions. Research gives limited guidance on how design of retail stores influences in-store

shopper behavior.11

Every customer entering a store has a purpose. It can range from focused intent - I need to buy

product X, or a more open-ended orientation - I want to browse. Figure captures the

different influences on a shopper as soon as he crosses the threshold of a store.

11Lam, Shun Yin., (2001). The effects of store environment on shopping behaviors: a critical review. Advances in

Consumer Research Volume 28, eds. Mary C. Gilly and Joan Meyers-Levy, Valdosta, GA : Association for

Consumer Research, Pages: 190-197.

Customer intentor task

orientation

Design

visual

considerations

Attractive visual displays

Design

spatialconsiderations

Store layout - product locations

Signage - understand where iswhat

Way-finding

Comfortable acesss

Power displays

Promotional strategies


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The in-store shopper behavior, outcome of shopper task orientation, is influenced by features of

store design and power displays near the store entrance. Store design has two characteristics,

visual and spatial. Visual characteristics encompass the visually attractive aesthetic design

features built into the store design. Spatial design elements comprise store features that enable

customers understand where is what in the store and identify how to get there. Complementary

to aesthetic considerations of visual design, spatial design focuses on more prosaic issues like

simplicity of layout to ease understanding of locations of brands or product categories, width of

corridors and aisles, and way-finding.

Research in a supermarket and an electronic store suggest that shopper intent appears to be the

driver of in-store travel andlocation of product category or brands are effective in explaining

consumer movement inside stores, whereas spatial considerations predict circulation and

product-shopper interaction. A strong power display of promotions, the action alley of Walmart

or the entrance street of Carrefour that display promotional merchandise, have a weak influence

on pull, they dont pull people into the store or increase circulation within the store but arecorrelated with purchases as a shopping outcome.

Gil, J., et al.12

(2009) researched shopper movement and behavior in a supermarket.

Supermarkets and hypermarkets are designed for guiding customer movement, exemplified by

clearly discernible wider main aisles, and for customer interaction with products, epitomized by

store entrance leading directly into produce and deli departments, and often the peripheral layout

of specialty departments like bakery, butchery, and diary. They found that shopper choice of in-

store travel paths appeared to be an outcome of the shopping mission of customers moderated by

spatial considerations, the locations of products in the store and the ease with which customers

can identify product locations. The observed shopper behavior a result of the purposeful natureof supermarket shopping, the simplicity of store layout, and shopper awareness of product

locations based upon prior store visits. Customers were using wider aisles more for access but

with limited interaction with products along the way.

Garip, E., et al.13

(2009) studied the additional influence of in-store marketing strategies on

consumer circulation and purchase behavior inside an electronics store. The location of product

categories within the store was a dominant influence on circulation and product interactions. In-

store marketing was influencing purchases and not circulation.

Shopper typology and store design

12Gil, Jorge., Tobari, Eime., Lemlij, Maia., Rose, Anna., and Penn, Alan., (2009). The Differentiating Behaviour of

Shoppers. Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium. Edited by Daniel Koch, Lars Marcus and

Jesper Steen, Stockholm.13Garip, E., and Unlu, A., (2009). Can We Measure Consumption? Proceedings of the 7th International SpaceSyntax Symposium Edited by Daniel Koch, Lars Marcus and Jesper Steen, Stockholm.


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In-store circulation is an important factor for a retailer and it is strongly influenced by the

shopper intent or shopping task orientation. Gil, J., et al.14

(2009) classified five shopping

mission typologies that were manifested in different in-store shopping behaviors (Table).

These five categories can be compressed into more manageable generic categories (Table )

applicable to most retail environments that may be used as input guidelines for store design. The

specialist and explorer categories of table were merged into destination and browser

categories respectively.

TableConsumer categorization from supermarket research

Consumer characterization Number (%)

of customers

Observed shopping behaviour Shopping outcomes

The Specialist 19 (4) Shoppers who focus on a few

products, interacting with them for

a long time.

Product interactions less

likely to result in purchases

The Native 161 (35) Shoppers make a long trip visiting

only relevant aisles.

Product interactions

with products are likely toresult in purchases

The Tourist 101 (22) Fast moving shoppers, who prefer

main corridors but dont go far

from the entrance

Low conversion ratio

looking more than buying

The Explorer 67 (15) Shoppers making the longest trips,

going everywhere more than once

Long interactions with the

products and buying a lot

The Raider 113 (24) Fast shoppers, both in moving and

making decisions, with clear

preference for main corridors,

going far into the store if necessary

High conversion

TableGeneric consumer categorization for store design

Consumer

characterization

Expected shopping behavior What will pull them

deeper into store

Shopping outcomes

Browsers Open-ended and flexible in-

store routes

Visually attractive cues

Convenient low

congestion walkways

Lowgrab something

they like

Destination

Shoppers making the longest

trips, going to the targeted

product categories and

spending time to explore other

product categories

Clear signage, displays,

location and buying

assistance

Higher conversions

Raiders Time constrained fast shoppers

Convenient access

Clear signage and

displays

High conversion

14Gil, Jorge., Tobari, Eime., Lemlij, Maia., Rose, Anna., and Penn, Alan., (2009). The Differentiating Behaviour ofShoppers. Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium. Edited by Daniel Koch, Lars Marcus and

Jesper Steen, Stockholm.


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Where should which department be?

Contrast the layouts of Carrefour and Walmart. Carrefour requires customers to traverse the

entire store to reach the produce, deli, bakery, and freshly prepared meals whereas Walmart is

designed to give customers direct access to the gives the same departments.

The store design is an outcome of assumptions that the stores make about their customers. Both

Walmart and Carrefour being hypermarkets draw a higher proportion of destination shoppers.

Carrefour has taken a design strategy of giving very wide main walkways, nearly 5-7 m wide,

lined with promotions, which eliminates the psychic cost of the extra walk to the fresh section.

Fresh is a relatively new category for Walmart. It already has the destination customer. To attract

the new weekly or daily customer for fresh products, it needs to give access convenience to

customers categorized as raiders. The store layout, placing the fresh and grocery sections

directly in front of the entrance, makes the internal movement convenient for the new customer.

Clustering categories

How does a retailer go about designing the layout of product categories? A retail store design has

many stakeholdersthe targeted customers and shoppers, the retailer, the designer, and

suppliers. The retailer has to balance the needs and expectations of the four stakeholders to arrive

at a design. The retailer has to remain objective and temper his own expectations in the design

process. A skewed emphasis on any stakeholder has detrimental consequences. Jashanmal, the

department store in Dubai, often overemphasized wholesale brands of the parent company

(kitchen appliances, luggage and writing instruments) by giving them in-store prominence

undermining the brand identity of the retailer as a home-ware retailer (kitchen, dining, and linenspecialist) with long-term impact on store productivity.

Floch (1988) tracked the development of a hypermarket design starting with customer

perspectives. The hypermarket zoning that emerged is shown in figure .. Some salient

observations - consumers wanted angled aisles, dry goods contiguous with fresh produce, textiles

contiguous with cold drinks, cleaning materials near the entrance, all the fresh and prepared

foods categories at the rear, and angled aisles. Retailer tests each layout decision using three

criteria - space productivity and yield considerations, circulation (pull of a product category

based on frequency of purchase and presence in shopping basket), and visual attractiveness. In

the final layout of the hypermarket angled aisles disappeared because of they are inefficient; less

linear meters for same floor area for displaying merchandise. Dry goods, drinks, and groceries

were clubbed together. Cheeses, delicatessen, and frozen were made adjacent to the fruit and

vegetable displays, and pushed towards the back to increase circulation. The apparel, shoes, and

toys were positioned to attract customers entering the hypermarket. Overall layout was similar to

the Carrefour of figure 6.


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Figure Store layout based on consumer discussions

How do layout design considerations change when designing department stores and a specialty

stores?

Traditional guidelines for developing effective store layouts are based upon principles of

attraction, exposure, and impulse with the goal of increasing sales per square foot.

Attraction focuses upon enticing customers into the store by communicating the store

positioning. Retailers do this by locating a collection of merchandise that is symbolic of the

store, referred to as the lead-off department, near the entrance. Customers become browsers as

they circulate within the store. They are pulled into the store by exposure, by locating famous

brands and desired categories along store peripheries and at noticeable locations. And browsers

become shoppers as exposure results in increasing sales through impulse buying. The

assumptions being that the customer can be led and guided by the retailer and the location of

a brand and category should be based upon sales goals of the brand and category. The efficacy of

a layout is based upon the visibility of the brands and categories to customers, the attractiveness

of their presentation to browsers, and the resulting sales performance. This approach is

simplistic. Consumers cannot be led and guided. When in a store a customer is in public space

and his behavior is his control. A retailer can at best give him cues and signals.

A retail store just doesnt house products. Architecture has configurative properties. Store

architecture and layout, the configuration of brands and categories, communicates meaning to

customers. This strategy is exemplified in the selling of fashion and cosmetics. A fashion brand


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presents an image to customers. Customers perceive an image and identify it with their self-

image. This process doesnt occur in isolation. Many brands are attempting to communicate their

brand identity and messages to customers. At the store level the conceptual ideas of brand

identity and differentiation acquire a tangible dimension. To concurrently achieve identification

with a brand image, and differentiation of the brand image from other brands, store level stimuli

like visual merchandising, and physical proximity or distance from other brands become

important.15 The way goods are laid out in a store serves to characterize and categorize them; the

retail store serves to frame, structure and describe the categories and brands. The presence

of brand or category in a collection and its relationship with its proximate neighbors

communicates a message to customers. A presence of Levis jeans in a Walmart 16 and Brooks

Brothers17

has different meanings for customers. A store frames what it contains. The collection

of categories and brands communicates the store positioning; the store is saying that the brands

in the store are coherent and the excluded brands dont belong here, lack a unifying thread or

consistency. The location of brands within the store, their visual merchandising and presentation

are visual stimuli to communicate messages and create a perception in a subtle way. The spatialarrangements within the store, the relative positioning of the brands and categories, is a means of

distinguishing and defining the categories and brands, the relative structuring of the brands and

categories.18 The total image created by the inter-connections amongst brands enables customers

to decode the subtle message. The locating of brands in physical space enables structuring or

positioning of the brands, the ranking of the brands in the perception of customers.

Locating categories

How do the connotative characteristics of architecture influence retail design? Let us examine a

department store design. The starting point of a store design is the list of brands and categories.From the perspective of a customer situated inside the store at the entrance, the store design must

provide him physical and visual vistas to enable him discover what lies where by simultaneous

perception and comparison of brands and categories.

Department stores are mostly designed with the perfumes and cosmetics category located near

store entrances, and the layout of perfumes and cosmetics department uses a free-flow format for

customers to walk right into the department. When I was starting out in retail I was told that this

layout was predicated by brand considerations, that the brands wanted the up-front locations. The

typology of layout of this category, brands presented in exclusive islands with strong attractive

15Guedes, G., and Soares, P. da Costa. (2005).Branding of Fashion Products: a Communication Process, a

Marketing Approach. Procceedings odf the Association for Business Communication 7th

European Convention, May

2005.16

http://www.walmart.com/browse/Men/All-Bottoms/Signature-by-Levi-Strauss-Co/_/N-

8vlcZ1yzp7caZ1yzmmmk?ic=48_0&ref=414192+4292474636+4292594794&catNavId=13319717

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/IWCatSectionView.process?IWAction=Load&Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=110818Koch, Daniel. (2009).Architectural Fashion Magazines. Proceedings of the 7th International Space SyntaxSymposium. Edited by Daniel Koch, Lars Marcus and Jesper Steen, Stockholm.


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distinctive identity, and retaining a contiguous character based on the consumer need the product

serves, how it is used or consumed, or in the way the product is purchased. Some of the factors

that retailers use in locating categories and brands are gender (difference between buying styles),

status (attractiveness of brands and commitment of effort to buying), privacy (in the buying

process), and brand (exclusivity), etc. This can also be exemplified based upon departments and

categories that serve the needs of a home like bedroom (linen, duvets, blankets, etc.), bathroom

(linen and accessories, etc.), kitchen (tools, utensils, etc.) and the dining table (China, glassware,

and cutlery, etc.) may be separated for distinctiveness, and yet be in close relational proximity.

Similarly in the mens fashion department or category street and tailored branches of mens

fashion are usually separated albeit in close proximity. Koch (2009)19 gives an example of a suit

department of one a department stores where the staff indicated that their customers were very

satisfied with the personal service they received, and the calm pace of the department dependent

on lack of customer flow.

In practice

Choices that confront a retailer in own brand stores like Marks and Spencer - How should

fashion brands be presented in a cluster? How should fashions, trends, styles, etc. be presented

and structured?

The question of store positioning - do customers come for the brands or categories? Does the

retailer seek to present a bouquet of brands or categories as differentiation?

Some stores are designed to present by giving each brand an opportunity to present itself with

distinctive spaces within the category, as a shop-in-shop with flooring, fixtures, lighting andsignage that clearly identifies the brand. A customer shopping the category experiences each

brand separately. Marks and Spencer is an own brand store and stocks only its own brands. It has

created its own sub-brands within categories to cater to different customer segments. In the

womens fashion category it has brands likeAutograph, Classic, Indigo Collection, Limited

Collection, per una and Portfolio. They present their cluster of brands together in the category

womens fashion. The presentation is not like a shop-in-shop. Flooring and lighting are generic

to the category. The brands are distinguished with signage and displays. The products on

displays are distinctive, representative of the brand characteristics and positioning, and

communicate intended differentiation. The shopper moving through the category seamlessly

and effortlessly moves through the brands within the category.

19Koch, Daniel. (2009).Architectural Fashion Magazines. Proceedings of the 7th International Space SyntaxSymposium. Edited by Daniel Koch, Lars Marcus and Jesper Steen, Stockholm.
http://www.marksandspencer.com/Autograph-Womens/b/71141031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Autograph-Womens/b/71141031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Indigo-Collection-Womens/b/210714031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Limited-Collection-Womens/b/43019030?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Portfolio-Womens/b/181771031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Portfolio-Womens/b/181771031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Limited-Collection-Womens/b/43019030?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Limited-Collection-Womens/b/43019030?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Indigo-Collection-Womens/b/210714031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Indigo-Collection-Womens/b/210714031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Autograph-Womens/b/71141031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2http://www.marksandspencer.com/Autograph-Womens/b/71141031?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0TRZHDSPMD0EAXZ7X4PR&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42967030&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2


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Customer coming for the value-proposition of Marks and Spencer is aware of the quality

standards of M&S, trusts the store brand name and his shopping style is category-centric.

The M&S approach, contrasted with the brand-centric approach, spotlights the difference

between categorizations and characterization in retail store design. In the example of cosmetics

or high-end fashion the cluster of name brands retain their distinctive store level identity and

evoke an image or character of the store, whereas in a store like M&S the retailer has to present

the categories and products to evoke an image and identity of the taxonomy of the store in the

minds of shoppers. Figure xxx distinguishes the brand-centric and category-centric approaches.

As the retailer strategy shifts towards category-centricity the role of in-store displays to

communicate messages to enable customers form an image and identity of the store taxonomy

increases. Ikea has many categories in the store. To effectively communicate its positioning

Figure . Retailer choice and role of displays in evoking store image and taxonomy

message to shoppers it presents its products in-use; a living room in-store display draw products

from multiple categories and mimics a real living room. For example the dining table will

simulate a real dining table with dinnerware, linen, cutlery, glassware, runners, napkins, and

lamps. This enables customers to visualize the appearance of their home using Ikea products and

realize the scope of product offering of Ikea.

Retailer choices

of store design

based on store

positioning

Brand-centric

Arranged as shop-in-shops (Saks,

Macy's)

Arranged as brands within categories (J

C Penny)

Category-centric

Categories with own sub-brands(Walmart, M&S)

Categories (Gap, Trader's Joe, Ikea)


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How does this change in the brand centric approach? A brand owner has three goals enable the

brand image to be presented, a brand is known by the company it keeps so the proximate brands

should be comparable and consistent so as not to indirectly communicate a dissonant message,

and the brand should be conspicuous in the company of its contemporary brands. Brands achieve

this in space through interplay of next-ness and distance. A brand display should be in the right

context comprising of its peer brands. The brand display should be distinctive and its boundaries

separated, at a distance from its neighbors to show differences. And yet the neighboring brand

should be visible to draw upon the perceptual value of association evoked in the customers. In

the example of cosmetics brand islands exist within a general category. The islands are

connected and different at the same time. The brands dictate locations and by managing the

spatial arrangements the brands communicate similarities and differences amongst the brands, a

concurrent homogeneity and heterogeneity, and the category called cosmetics emerges with its

own sub-categories. Brands like Dior, Clinique, Lancme, Helena Rubinstein, Shisheido, and

Guerlain belong to the luxury cosmetics group. Brands like Elizabeth Arden and Lancaster

constitute the extreme end of the luxury category whereas Hard Candy, Bobby Brown, and MACcomprise a trendier category group. Revlon, Cover Girl, and Maybelline are classified as the

mass market category.

Apparel can either be arranged by brand, with each brand allocated area that is demarcated by

distinct boundaries, the distinctiveness accentuated by different flooring, fixtures and visual

contexts and imagery, or displayed in a shared area that has common flooring and display

fixtures, where the boundaries of brands are indistinct, barring for signs and visuals atop the

fixtures e.g. shirts or suits or sportswear of different brands on proximate fixtures, separate yet

close. In both the display types the category of mens apparel will have all constituents of the

category mix e.g. suits, shirts, jeans, sportswear, and underwear, together.

Boundaries and display strategies create visibility and differentiation. Distance is suggestive of

meaningful difference of the brands displayed whereas proximity and merging of boundaries is

evocative of brand and product similarity.

Store design, status, and price attributions

Ambiance of the store is a means for the retailer to communicate and connect the social class or

status aspirations of the store and its target customer group. High end brands are usually located

in spacious surroundings suggestive of a correlation between spaciousness and status assertion of

the brand. They present merchandise in customized display fixtures in exclusive spaces. The

presentation is slightly discrete, often away from the aisle. They show fewer pieces on the floor

or use more space for each item displayed. They use graphics, mannequins and props to visually

define the brand in use. Every complementary feature of the displays, like hangers, is

customized.


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Customers too develop perceptions about merchandise when they see product displays. They

extract meaning from characteristics of displays and attribute meaning to displayed products

and brands. Three features of displays that serve as cues are how brands are displayed, the

distinctiveness of display boundaries, density of merchandise visible on the floor, and usage of

special or customized display units. The thumb rules customers use to convert observations to

perceptions are acquired through experience. Customers attribute price perceptions when they

see merchandise on the shop floor; products displayed compactly and closely are perceived as

low priced whereas low shop-floor merchandise density is felt as expensive. Similarly

products on elegantly merchandised displays with special fixtures and props are perceived as

expensive, whereas the same products on basic fixtures are sensed as cheaper.

How to do store design case of Apple

Documents

Last Mile 5category Layouts