Designing the perfect retail store is more than just having an attractive space. A well-designed retail store will not only attract customers, but boost sales as well. By maximizing your available space and optimizing it as a marketing tool to better showcase your products, you will improve the shopping experience of your customers and increase profit.

Your retail space plays an important role in the success of your business, and at times it can be difficult to know exactly what the best route is when it comes to upgrading your fit out. Should you expand your store so that customers have more space to browse? Or should you downsize to put more emphasis on your products? It can be a tricky decision to make. So, to help you out, we look at what you need to know when thinking about expanding or downsizing your retail space.

Expand or Downsize?

When thinking about whether to expand or downsize your retail store, there are three key aspects that you need to take into consideration before landing on a decision. These three aspects will indicate what type of fit out you require.

Floorplan

Is your floorplan the best it could possibly be? A comfortable shopping experience is an important factor to consider when creating a floorplan. It needs to be functional and easy to navigate for both staff and customers. There are other considerations to keep in mind, like where fixtures and fittings are located and how the lighting is arranged – but your floorplan is by far the most vital of them all.

Analyse the way your employees and customers behave and interact with layout of your retail store. Observe the way they browse your merchandise to better understand how to arrange your aisles and pathways. This will give you a better sense of whether you need to expand the space by moving to a bigger location or adding a second floor. Or whether you need to downsize to a smaller space for a better shopping experience.

Product Placement

Product placement is actually a very good indicator of whether you should moderate or upscale your retail space. It’s all about giving your merchandise the best exposure without looking too overcrowded. This will help customers find exactly what they’re looking in the least amount of time possible. Which, in turn, will make for a better shopping experience.

Put simply, the less confusing your store looks, the easier it will be for your customers to make a purchase decision. If you feel that your store is too overcrowded to place enough attention on your products or that there’s too much space that makes the shopping experience uncomfortable, you might want to consider expanding or downsizing your store.

Point-of-Sale Needs

The placement of registers is often overlooked when retailers consider upscaling or downsizing their spaces. A dysfunctional store layout can make a simple checkout process feel arduous and complicated, which could negatively affect your sales. Ensure that you consider you point-of-sale needs and that it is optimised for swift transactions before reconstructing your existing store in any way.

Reasons to Expand

If you’re still unsure which is right for you, there are certain factors of your retail store that will clearly indicate an expansion of space is needed to maintain or increase profitability. Consider expanding if:

• There’s a need for additional space to display merchandise.
• You require wider aisles to provide customers with a comfortable, non-cramped shopping experience.
• The store’s profits are high enough to merit expanding the space, which may mean moving to a larger property or opening a second location.

Reasons to Downsize

On the other hand, if you feel that your retail store needs to be downsized, there are a few key considerations that will indicate the need to decrease operations:

• The rent increase exceeds the operating budget limit.
• You realize that there is an excessive amount of wasted space in the store.
• The amount of in-stock merchandise necessary to serve your present customer base has reduced.
• The customer base in the area where you retail store is located has shifted to lower-income instead of a high-come one and sales have decreased as a result.

Maybe Neither is the Answer

Once you’ve taken all the above points into consideration and have properly analyzed your retail store, you might find that neither an expansion or downsizing is right for you. In your specific situation, you may only need to maximize the use of your current location with a redesign of your layout, display cases, lighting and décor to address your needs. If your budget allows for this, we would suggest exploring this route first before committing to expanding or downsizing your retail store.

Whether you want to expand or downsize your retail store, you’ll need the help of an expert shop fitter. Contractors.Direct can connect you with thoroughly vetted qualified contractors who can bring your vision to life, on time and on budget. Get in contact with us here.