Patagonia
Environmental Retail Design
Created a retail design for the UK flagship store to inspire and educate customers on environmental and sustainable practises.
Get the highlights.
increase in year-on-year turnover
uplift in product bay driven sales
more environmental conversations
Project overview
Deliver a retail store design to drive traffic to underutilised areas to incrase selling oppirtunities, infuse brand values and marketing campaigns into product layouts and allow the option of customer self-service when needed.
Timelines
3 months (including planning, scheduling, implementation and review).
Team role
Visual lead – responsible for the overall implementation of the layout and success via KPI metrics.
Understanding problem areas
Customers don't always see the value and potential long life of the products in-store and so cannot justify the higher price.
Customers get lost trying to find a product that matches their need.
Discover more about the problem.
Competition analysis
Conducted reviews of local retailers with a similar product to understand key strengths and weaknesses of the market.
Journey mapping
This helped to outline the emotions and experience customers go through when looking for products in the store.
Customer interactions
I observed customer shopping behaviours and paths of movement around the store to gain knowledge about which areas needed attention.
Defining the design area
How might we increase footfall to all areas of the store to maximise commercial real estate?
How might we improve customer knowledge around product features, and educate them on brand values and campaign awareness?
How might we allow customers to find their way around the store without the need of staff help?
How might we increase product sell through rates and create a brand/customer relationship that generates repeat business or brand awareness?
Measuring success.
Sales data
An increase in store turnover, especially key product lines pushed as part of the layout, highlights quickly which areas are working or not.
Sales conversion
Use money mapping techniques to understand which product bays customers are purchasing from in order to provide value to all areas of the store.
Stock inventory
Reduction of slow moving, bulk lines of stock in the inventory. By promoting these within the layout allows for the stock room to work more effectively.
Considerations
Stakeholders were needed to be aware of the following factors that were outside of the project control but could negatively effect the project outcome.
Stock delivery
Part of the layout was reliant on delivery of certain key lines, which were included in marketing campaigns. If stock delivery of these lines was to drop, then this would heavily affect the layout. The need for a contingency here is high to ensure that marketing and layout spaces are used effectively.
Service opportunities
All staff members were made aware of the campaign products and the features/benefits of each to upsell them correctly. However, the effort to look for sales opportunities is down to the individual and store management to oversee this.
Develop and test.
Planograms
Using 3D models of the store helps to visuals product layout and upselling opportunities.
Point of sale
Tested campaign messaging in different areas to understand effectivness.
Deliver the solution.
Project reflections.
Updated staff training
Some members of the in-store team only work a small number of hours and so were not always fully familiar with the store layout and changes made.
To rectify this issue, once the new layout was implemented, I needed to schedule several store walkthroughs to capture all members of the team and update them on the changes.
Doing this, allows everyone to benefit from the newly added efficiencies and support customers on their journey through the store.
Deal with product backlog
The nature of the layout change resulted in additional product sizes being removed from the sales floor. This was to make room for new products and marketing/brand messaging.
For the future, I need to plan in additional time for staff to tidy these products into the stockroom. This process will ensure an efficient replenishment process that results in better service and improved financial gain.
Key skills used
Market analysis, Visual merchanidising, Master Planning, Customer experience design, Budget management, Project management