Why redesign your store?

With the return of better times in powersports retail, many of you are coming into this topic as being either new to our industry as new retailers, you have been holding off on improvements to your store for better times or your store is being made over by one of the OEM brands to their standard (BMW, Indian, Harley-Davidson, Ducati, etc.). Store layout and design can have a positive effect on growing sales. Brand identification, effective showroom layouts and shop ability all fall into design influence.

Can store design and redesign help you gain your store’s sales goals? If you’re asking me, I will tell you with an emphatic yes! However let me share with you some information on why time and effort on store layout and design is crucial to any store’s success.

Let’s look at some information from retailers in the mainstream world, (apparel, electronics, everyday goods and more outside of the powersports business world) retailers seek info to determine the metrics of store design on ROI and sales goals. This information is from the A.R.E. (Association of Retail Environments) newsletter Jan/Feb 2015 on ROI for store design.

Merchandising, presentation, product awareness, brand awareness and customer service are all motivators to consider updating and redesigning your stores interior.

Purpose of a store redesign: Information source is the A.R.E survey of retailers in October 2014

• 93 percent of retailers find the in-store customer experience important to their brand
• 50 percent of retailers redesign their retail stores to create a stronger connection with current consumer base
• 23 percent redesign to gain a competitive edge in the market.
• 19 percent redesign to align a redefined/reinvented brand
• 8 percent to appeal to a new customer segment

Goal of retailers redesign:

• 52 percent to increase market share/sales
• 41 percent to create a more engaging brand experience
• 4 percent to generate a brand buzz / awareness
• 4 percent to acquire new customers

How long should a redesign last to the next redesign?

• 35 percent say 4-6 years (after six years — a mainstream brand retailer would say the store is starting to get stale)
• 23 percent say up to 2 years

Consider that many of us in powersports retail have stores that have not been updated since the 1990s and early 2000s. For many it was not that long ago, however, in retail years it’s more like 40 rather than 15-25 years. The goal of any store is to showcase brands and products, improve sales to customers that are loyal, attract new customers and improve dwell time (time in store and boost impulse sales). Store design is a key part of this! So is a stronger and smarter merchandising of goods and brands.

The question is: Should you redesign or update your store? If it’s been more than 10 years, yes!! Now is a great time to consider updates, color of walls, lighting and if changing a layout would be beneficial. Moving forward, try to keep your store light and bright, the last decade was one that found stores to be too dark. Finally, look for ways to add wall space and floor access to your products. For more talk on this subject and more, see me at AIMExpo this October!

Jennifer Robison will be speaking at AIMExpo on Friday October 16, 2015 at 1 p.m. Her session is called “Set, See, Sell, Profit: Using merchandising to draw customers to your retail store.” 

Robison’s career began in 1987 when she served as a service writer/parts sales for a high-end import auto dealer before becoming one of the first generation of Harley-Davidson Motorclothes managers at a Northwest dealership (1991-2000). From 2002 on, Jennifer has been with Tucker Rocky Distributing. Jennifer has educated the Tucker Rocky sales force and dealers about the powersports apparel business and powersports retailing. Jennifer’s expertise is in powersports retailing, merchandising and display, promotions and in-store marketing. She has lectured and written about powersports retailing and continues to perform dealer educational workshops and seminars across the United States.

Contact: jrobison@tuckerrocky.com
Website: www.tuckerrocky.com