Strategies to Improve the Efficiency of Product Layout in Small Stores

Table of Contents:

The Importance of Product Layout in Small Retail Stores

Strategic Planning in Small Stores 

Maximizing Merchandising in Small Retail Spaces

Merchandising Adaptability

Optimize Customer Flow

Product Layout in Small Stores

In the retail industry, store design and layout can significantly impact a store's success. While large stores have a lot of opportunities to experiment with retail space and layout, small retail stores face many problems and challenges.

The limited sales floor space can make it difficult to display goods and create an attractive shopping environment effectively. However, with strategic planning and thoughtful layout, small stores can maximize efficiency and create an exceptional shopping experience for customers.

The Importance of Product Layout in Small Retail Stores

Product layout plays a crucial role in shaping the customer experience. A well-designed store with a well-thought-out floor plan, equipment, and layout can attract and engage customers, ultimately influencing their purchasing decisions. Limited space can make it difficult to display goods, especially when you don't know how much product you need to place effectively.

Retailers use special programs to work out all the processes of creating a store plan and placing products on planograms. PlanoHero is one of them. This convenient multifunctional tool allows you to build a store plan and fixtures, create planograms, customize the layout to the store's needs, and monitor the implementation of planograms in retail stores. In addition, with the help of PlanoHero, merchandisers manage the assortment, track the effectiveness of the layout, and control the shelf capacity.

Strategic Planning in Small Stores 

To maximize space efficiency in small retail stores, you need strategic planning. The first step is to understand your own retail space. This involves thoroughly analyzing the available space, setting priorities in the store layout, and identifying key focal points for product layout.

Thanks to the space analysis, retailers can better understand the limitations and opportunities provided by a small retail space. It considers the floor plan, size, architectural limitations of the space, and any obstacles to equipment placement. By strategically placing products on shelves, retailers can draw attention to key products.

Maximizing Merchandising in Small Retail Spaces

Efficient use of vertical space is the key to maximizing merchandising in small stores. Wall shelves, hooks, hanging showcases, perforated or grooved wall panels, and tall shelving can help you maximize the use of limited space. These installations can expand your display options, allowing you to demonstrate your products at different eye levels.

Vertical merchandising can help you create a sense of depth, height, and variety in your store and free up floor space for other uses.

However, don't forget to ensure that products placed on higher shelves are within the height range of the customer. If the layout is slightly out of reach, ensure your staff is ready to help the customer anytime. 

Merchandising Adaptability

Implementation of creative solutions for shelving and display cases can add visual interest and create an effective presentation of goods. These can include staggered shelves, asymmetrical displays, and unique configurations that draw attention to the products.

Modular shelving systems are changing the game of in-store merchandising. Unlike static shelves, they can be modified, expanded, or contracted to fit the current merchandise. Whether introducing a new product line or simply updating your store's seasonal layout, adaptable shelving easily accommodates these changes, allowing you to reimagine your space.

Choosing multifunctional units is one of the ways to save space and money. For example, you can use tables, carts, baskets, or drawers that can be moved, stacked, or rearranged to create different layouts and arrangements. You can also use structures holding different types of products, such as baskets, trays, cans, or boxes. 

An example of multifunctional structures is folding fixtures. They can be used as focal points to attract customers' attention; for example, a shelf can fold into a table to attractively display more products, and parts of the structure can be used as hanging points for cross-merchandising products.

Optimize customer flow

Customer flow is how customers move through your store, from when they enter to when they leave. You need to understand how to guide people through the store to maximize access to your products. Optimizing customer flow is essential to creating a seamless shopping experience in small stores. By strategically placing products and equipment, retailers can guide customers through the store in a way that makes them feel comfortable and at ease. 

Keep in mind. How customers move through your store is as important as the products they find. By assessing the flow of customers, you can identify high-traffic areas that you can optimize for promotions and bestsellers. Conversely, you can place new products and interactive displays by identifying the least visited areas of the sales floor. 

Using the PlanoHero merchandising automation software, you can design a store plan for the needs of a small retail space, customize the process of working with planograms, manage the assortment, and track customer movement using a heat map of customer movement. 

With PlanoHero, you can virtually visualize your space, experiment with different equipment and layout schemes, and make decisions about product placement based on an analysis of the effectiveness of the layout. 

All this is to ensure that a well-organized store improves the shopping experience and directly affects consumer behavior.

Product Layout in Small Stores

Focus on Your Bestsellers

When you have limited space, budget, and resources, you need to figure out what products to display and how to place them. Focus on the best-selling products, the most profitable products, the most unique products, or products that your competitors don't have. They should be placed in visible and accessible places, for example, at the entrance, checkout, or the end of the aisles. Using clear and attractive signage, optimal lighting, and thoughtfully chosen colors can further emphasize the appeal of these key products, effectively setting them apart from the rest of your assortment. Also, promote products with high turnover, seasonal products, and products nearing the end of their expiration date.

Use Cross Merchandising

Cross merchandising is a technique of displaying products that are related or complementary to each other in the same area of the sales floor. It can help you increase sales by encouraging customers to buy more than one product or try something new. For example, you can display accessories next to clothing or snacks next to drinks. You can also use cross-merchandising to create themes, stories, or solutions that match your customers' needs, preferences, or lifestyles. If storage temperature or product fixtures are not a limitation, be creative with how you display the product on the shelf. 

Aside from increasing basket size, cross-merchandising can also strengthen customer relationships. Think about it: If you, as a customer, bought a game console with a single controller and didn't know about it, you would have two children at home. If you inform the customer about the need for an extra controller, it will be valuable to the customer during the first purchase and avoid disappointment. Conversely, if you don't emphasize this, the customer's disappointment may lead to them purchasing an additional controller elsewhere, and you may lose the client.

Conclusion

Small retail spaces can cause a number of challenges. Still, with strategic planning and modern merchandising solutions like PlanoHero, retailers can make the most of their space and create an exceptional shopping experience for customers. Small stores can achieve space efficiency and stand out from the competition by maximizing merchandise layout, creating a pleasant atmosphere, efficient planning, and adapting to change.