Think about what your favourite retail store looks like inside. Don’t just think about the merchandise but the design as well. Consider the aisles, the flow, and the décor. You will realize that the store layout is everything.

The retail store design is a science. How you display products, light aisles, and decorate can have a dramatic impact on sales. It’s also an exercise in enhancing your brand and marketing it accurately. You want an intuitive, customer-friendly shopping space. This involves understanding how people are entering your store and being able to guide their movement.

Create sections anticipating how many people can fit there, separating ‘most trafficked zones’ from the less trafficked. Have a zone as they enter that is very welcoming. Incorporate pockets where customers can take a breather for a moment and it doesn’t feel like they’re running a maze.

Here is how to decorate a retail store beautifully.

1. High-Quality Retail Shelving

Make sure you have the best retail shelving made from quality manufacturers like ACME Shelving. Ensure it’s able to handle the weight, look professional, and assign tags on every product type. Prices and names should be indicated.

Ideally, you want your shelves fully stocked at all times. If this isn’t always possible, take note of what’s selling and when things need to be moved forward for appearances. Consider re-designing where certain products are according to how they sell.

2. Feature Your Best Products

Not every product is equal. Some are big-ticket items, some are seasonal, and some deserve features. This can involve setting up a specific end-cap display for them, collaborating with a brand to highlight a product with a cardboard display, or something altogether different. Find ways to feature the products you are most determined to sell and have them accessible. Make it easy to grab and take to the cash.

3. Your Window Display

If you have a window display, this is fairly important, especially if you are somewhere likely to get a lot of foot traffic. A window display should not only have your best products but have a decorative element to them. Lure people in. Make them curious. With your customer in mind, design a storefront display that would get your target customer excited to come in and explore. Once they’re in your store, that’s half the battle.

4. Analyzing Space Between Products

A retail store isn’t a warehouse. This isn’t Costco where someone can pull out a pallet of product and that’s that. To make your retail store beautiful, you have to look at how products are presented. Clusters of products are fine in some types of retail and in others, you need fewer products on the shelf to help emphasize the display. Ensure products are not only accessible but presented in the most attractive way to the customer.

5. Play with Shapes, Lengths, and Height

Customize your retail shelving a bit. Have product at different heights, with shelving of different lengths, and mix in some non-shelving display choices. You want to have your retail store visual appear fresh, interesting, and eye-catching. You do not want shelving that’s repetitive, larger than the space needs, or that seems cluttered.

This is where a retail store manager’s creativity is going to come into play. Find a way to create rhythms in your store that isn’t unnatural or overly busy. For this, you may want to look at and get inspired by retail store décor styles similar to your brand.

6. Decorate With Branded Signage

Once again, you don’t want it looking like a warehouse so do decorate. Take your brand’s colour palette and font and put it on display with signage. A lot of grocery stores are great for this. Highlight different areas, products, or sales.

Evoke a theme. Make your retail store feel like a customer’s shopping at an event rather than ‘picking up ‘x’’. Reflect on your brand but also communicate sales-friendly emotions, get people in the right mood to spend, and have fun.

7. Digital Displays And Signage

Another approach to in-store retail signage is to use digital displays. They come in all sorts of designs, with pillars and panels being among the more common. More and more, we see stores use images, video, and digital interfaces to engage customers and invite them into retail sections they might not otherwise flock to. It is a great merchandising technique. Touchscreen monitors, motion activation, and similar interactive elements are positively thought of by many customers.

8. Light Product Effectively

In and amongst your merchandise displays, store layout, retail shelving styles, and retail store décor do not discount the importance of lighting. This is make-or-break. Lighting’s not just about visibility. It’s about drawing attention to certain areas, creating ambience, and even using it to target specific displays. As you will notice in some retail stores, even change their lighting style depending on your section. There is a lot to play with and explore with retail store lighting.