How Retail Spaces Are Designed to Attract Consistent Footfall

How Retail Spaces Are Designed to Attract Consistent Footfall

Consumer psychology, spatial planning, and data will be utilised to determine how a customer enters, moves throughout, pauses within, and returns to a space. Thoughtfully designed retail environments can increase dwell time, enhance the visibility of your products and services, and lead to more repeat visits. Therefore, design is not a secondary concern, but rather it is foundational to business strategy.

Retail Space Design: 3 Proven Design Techniques That Attract Customers

Research has revealed three retail "design secrets" that improve customer attraction and retention across both shopping centres and high street locations.

1. Choosing A Layout Based On Purpose
Loop and free-flow layouts in retail space planning encourage customers to explore. The racetrack layout increases the chance of the customer seeing more products. 

2. Creating Strong Visual Entry Points
The unplanned visual appearance of a store can create a negative psychological barrier to entry. However, if a customer can see activity, scale, and relevance immediately upon entering the store, they are less likely to hesitate.

3. Creating Balanced Widths For Circulation Aisles
A retail environment with wider primary circulation aisles allows for easier flow, decreased congestion, and increased dwell time, especially during peak periods.

Retail Space Planning for First-Time and Repeat Visitors

New visitors can learn about the space using clear zoning and navigation. Anchor placement layouts provide a familiar layout to allow for prompt and easy return visits. If retailers use pause points and transition zones effectively, they will drive foot traffic and extend seller dwell time over a period of time.

Retail Layout Design and Shopper Movement Psychology

The design of the retail layout determines how shoppers circulate throughout the space. 

1. Central corridors with secondary looping reduce blank spots or dead zones on the property.
2. When anchor tenants are located on the extremities of the property, they create flow through the centre of the property.
3. The placement of vertical access near the areas of activity allows for a greater amount of foot traffic.

Studies of foot traffic and how people navigate through space have demonstrated how layouts that have been optimised using data from moving shoppers provide better exposure than layouts created for aesthetic purposes.

Footfall-Driven Retail Design Through Sensory Control

There are several environmental factors, as well as sensory ones, that influence a consumer's behaviour, beyond the way the structure is organised.

• Lighting colours have directional or motivating effects on the pace of a shopper's browsing.
• If acoustics in a high-density area are well-controlled, shoppers feel less fatigued.
• Flooring and material choices affect shoppers' comfort level and quality perceptions.

The decisions retailers make regarding sensory choices will have an impact on both dwell time and the likelihood of repeat visits.

Retail Space Design and Window Display Strategy

The way window displays are designed has been proven to increase the likelihood of a shopper entering a particular retail outlet by marketing their products and showing they are an active retailer.

Effective windows:

• Send messages about the category they are from and create an impression
• Ensuring there is no excess or "clutter"
• Use lighting that performs day and night

The window display is not a set piece; rather, it continues to engage with a customer the entire time that they are window shopping.

Data-Led Retail Space Planning for Consistent Footfall

Data-led retail space planning will ensure that a retailer's physical retail space remains relevant. A retailer is less likely to lose a customer if they provide strategic retail space design. Sensory and visual elements are also demonstrated to have a significant impact on shopper behaviour, and a data-driven approach to retail space planning will ensure retailers remain relevant to consumers for many years.

Key Takeaways: 

1. Regular foot traffic can be created through the strategic design of retail spaces.
2. Layouts that serve a purpose will create greater shopper interactions.
3. Strategically designed layouts with clear zoning and predictable layouts will encourage repeat visits.
4. The way shoppers interact with different sensory and visual elements will greatly affect their purchasing decisions.
5. Data-driven planning will help ensure the retail space remains relevant to the market.

FAQs

1. How to increase footfall in a retail store?
Utilizing strategically designed retail space will help create a clearer layout and keep window displays fresh and updated, and digitally prepared and accessible layouts will also aid in improving foot traffic.

2. How do retail stores attract customers?
Retail space is typically drawn into a location by creating visibility from surrounding areas through engaging storefront windows, making layouts intuitive to shopper flow, and designing retail spaces utilizing sensory design elements.

3. What are the 4 P's of retail?
The 4 P’s of retail are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion, together shaping what is sold, where, at what value, and how it is marketed.

4. What does "footfall" mean in retail?
In retail, footfall means the number of people entering a retail space over a specified period. Footfall is also used to measure how well a retail store is performing, how well it is engaging customers, and how the retail store might improve its engagement with customers over time.