You have arranged the product display in a way that captures the customer’s attention and strategically organized the space to enhance the shopping experience. After proper lighting, adding a few secret touches will elevate the overall atmosphere. To leave a lasting impression on customers after they leave the premises, it’s crucial not to forget to provide excellent service during their stay.
To maximize hospitality for visitors, pay special attention to designing seating areas and dressing rooms. This attention to detail extends the time customers spend in the store. Fast-paced shopping, varying prices, a multitude of choices, and mingling with unfamiliar people can tire visitors, making a relaxation area essential. You ensure customers’ loyalty by creating a zone where they can relax, contemplate, and make decisions.
Speaking of a comfortable and pleasant environment, dressing rooms play a significant role in the decision-making process when it comes to clothing purchases. Well-lit, spacious, and offering ample privacy, these cabins provide customers with a positive clothing try-on experience. It’s important to consider details such as doors instead of curtains, high-quality mirrors, and a clean well-lit atmosphere.
What should the seating area in a retail space look like?
If the store has a larger square footage, the seating area will be inside the store, while in smaller stores, seating can be arranged outside the entrance. It’s important to ensure that this area doesn’t disrupt the natural flow of shopping. Diverse elements like benches for trying on shoes, chairs in front of dressing rooms, comfortable armchairs, and sofas allow for various combinations, and the greater the comfort, the better the experience. This section of the store should have sufficient fresh air, and the addition of pleasant music and fragrance is a significant plus. Utilize this space for promotion – it’s an excellent opportunity for visitors to learn more about your loyalty program.
Another crucial aspect where comfort for customers needs to be provided is in dressing rooms. Research has shown that over half of clothing purchase decisions are made within these cabins. Interestingly, it’s worth noting that as much as 70% of clothing ordered online is returned because it doesn’t meet customer expectations. Physical clothing stores have an advantage as dressing rooms allow consumers to try items before purchasing, reducing the aforementioned percentage to a single digit.
How should dressing rooms look?
1. Spacious and offering sufficient privacy
They should be spacious and offer sufficient privacy. Keep in mind that the customer will be in the dressing room with their belongings and the clothing they are trying on. Ensuring comfort during the changing process is crucial. It’s advisable to choose doors or panels instead of curtains because curtains can sometimes give the impression of cheapness, especially after prolonged use.
2. Well-lit and clean
No one wants to try on clothes in a messy space or stand barefoot on a dirty floor. Adequate lighting is key to presenting the customer in clothing as attractively as possible. Overhead fluorescent lights or lights at eye level that are more distracting than helpful are not the best solution. Instead, high-quality mirrors with backlighting on the other side are an excellent solution. Choose neutral and strategically placed lighting, and consider motion-activated lights to reduce electricity consumption in dressing rooms, which usually see a high footfall throughout most of the day.
3. Practical to use
Ensure an adequate number of dressing rooms to avoid waiting in line when trying on clothes. Each dressing room should have a small chair or bench, a quality mirror with the option to adjust for different angles, and a sufficient number of hooks for hanging items. Don’t forget about air conditioning – the person changing shouldn’t feel too hot or too cold.
How else can you please your customers?
Certain brands, aiming to create a comfortable atmosphere, offer visitors the chance to sample food or drinks that can be purchased in-store. While some provide free sweets, others focus on faster and easier payment methods to save their customers time. Even self-service checkout counters are designed to give customers additional control and a sense of privacy. All these elements serve as final touches that will complete the story of the retail interior, making your brand unforgettable. Develop creative strategies concerning the competition, and tailor them to the needs of your customers, and the results will be outstanding.
We continue the series on the interior of retail spaces, concluding with an examination of the impact of colors on the human brain and the significance of color schemes for your brand in the next article.
If you missed our previous blog on types of lighting and how it can work to your advantage, you can read it HERE.
