What to Place Where
Early in your planning stages, you should have a broad idea of what major features you’ll have in your store. Will you have a game room? How much space will be devoted to miniatures? Are you planning for 600 square feet of space or 3,500 square feet?
The primary factor involved in store design lies in understanding how people shop. No one explains this better than Paco Underhill in his best-selling book on retail, “Why We Buy.” Do not wait; do not waffle; do not begrudge the pittance you spend on it. If you plan to open a retail store of any kind, go buy that book and read it. Understanding its lessons and implementing them in your store design puts money in your pocket.
Inside the Door
One of the concepts that Underhill discusses is traffic flow. Go look at 20 different stores in nearby shopping centers. In probably 18 of them, the cash wrap fixture is to the left of the door. Why? Customers tend to instinctively move to the right when entering a store. You don’t want the cash wrap to be the shopper’s first experience. The cash wrap should be last. If they approach the cash wrap first, they might buy one of your $5 impulse items at the counter and then leave. That’s a waste of whatever marketing effort brought that customer into the store.
You want that person to see some of your most attractive products, something that will turn them from a browser into a buyer. In a game store, a good fixture for that first sight on entry is a new product shelf—something that, by its nature, refreshes itself on a regular basis.
You want something that exemplifies your store. Your snack rack isn’t it. Your discount bin probably isn’t it (although it could be for some business models). Games Workshop could be it.
The Circle
Wal-Mart calls it Action Alley. Toys R Us calls it the Racetrack. Whether you have a brand name for it or not, your main traffic channel affects what areas of your store sell. You should design it—and utilize it—to direct customers on a path through your entire store. Understand that most customers unconsciously follow this path around the store, and place the products of highest importance in position visible from and accessible from this main lane of traffic.
In a small store, this might be a simple “U”, starting at the door, extending along both sides of a single row of gondolas, and ending back at the cash wrap. In a larger store, this path might be a wide rectangle with different closed-in departments on each side. Customers can stop and shop, but when they’re ready to leave, they have to get back on the path.
In big-box retail, a sidecap facing the main traffic flow easily outsells its opposite-facing counterpart by a factor of five. The pace of shopping is usually slower in a specialty retail store, which reduces the variation (because people stop and look around more), but the difference is still there. Visibility from the main traffic lane can make or break a product line’s sales.
The Cash Wrap
As mentioned, the cash wrap should usually be on the left, in what would otherwise be the least valuable space in the store. It should have clear lines of sight to as much of the store as possible. Some retailers even place their cash-wrap on a platform to give clerks extra visibility.
The cash wrap should have easy access for employees, placed in such a manner that customers don’t misinterpret it as a place where they’re welcome. If your opening is vague, you might consider installing a gate.
The Game Room
If you’ve read the pros and cons and decided to have a game room, you have to decide where to place it. For most stores, the answer is “in the back.” Ninety percent of your customers do not use your game room. They might enjoy the atmosphere of a game store with in-store play, but they don’t come in for social games or events. Thus, the main emphasis should be on the retail space, which generates your income.
Placing the retail area in the back offers other advantages, also. You can control the flow of players and product from the game room to the store exit, thus limiting theft opportunities. The noise of the game room has less of an impact on your shoppers.
A very few retailers place their gaming area in the front of the store. This placement creates problems in a couple of areas, but it does allow foot traffic to see the store activity level. The hope is that a busy schedule will draw in customers whose curiosity might be aroused by the high energy level inside.
In the case of some large stores that occupy two adjacent suites, many stores use one suite for the game room and the other for retail space. This side-by-side layout offers many advantages of both points of view. Potential customers walking by can see the activity, while you control traffic by leaving that suite’s door locked, thus requiring gamers to move through your well-designed sales floor before reaching it (and past watchful employees on their way out). After hours, you can lock the door between retail and gaming, allowing gamers to exit at their leisure while you count down your drawer and do your nightly paperwork in private.
Game Room Furnishings
You want to be able to seat a large number of people, but you also want people to be able to walk comfortably through the area. These two needs create conflict. Make sure you have lanes of traffic between your tables. Notice how restaurants often seat people against the walls and leave avenues between the ends of the tables. Use a similar concept for your gaming tables.
If you plan to have a coffee maker, microwave oven often or other features in your game room, you need a table for them. You’ll also need at least one trash container, which you should place in such a way that it’s obvious to people in the game room but not obtrusive to those looking in to see what’s going on in there.
Department Signage
Many customers prefer not to interact with salespeople. Signs hanging from the ceiling are a good way to help customers find what they want without opening themselves up to a sales pitch. If that’s not feasible, you might be able to place signs on the walls or on the fixtures themselves.
Another simple method of identifying your department is by paint scheme. Paint a blue strip (for example) above your role-playing section, a red strip above your miniatures, and a green strip above your board/family games. Your signs indicating each department should be the same color as that category’s color. Customers quickly learn to associate these colors with those areas. If you’re fairly certain you don’t plan to make major changes to your floor plan in the near future, you could even paint the fixtures themselves.
Signage Vs. Clutter
Avoid using too many signs. Haphazard sign placement, more signs than a person can read, inconsistent sign sizes and other unprofessional usage reduces the value of all of your signs. You’ll see better results by rotating those signs every few weeks than by trying to cram them all in at once.
Restrooms
You certainly want at least a restroom for your employees, and if you have a game room you’ll want to have one with easy access for your customers, too. Your local laws might require one or more restrooms. Check those laws before signing any lease.
Office
To some owners, an office is a selfish and egregious waste of space. To others, it’s a necessary part of retail, providing a private place for interviews, employee training and discipline, order placement, and counting money. If you do have an office, keep it as small as possible. You’re paying rent for the ability to sell your products. You want as much retail space as possible for your rental dollars. Even 100 square feet should be plenty of room for a desk and a couple of chairs.
Storage
Some stores won’t use any extra storage space at all. Others rely on it extensively. The difference lies in your buying patterns and sales outlets. If you remove products from the shelf regularly to replace them with newer product you need something to do with the older product. Some stores hold a clearance sale and throw away anything left over. Others assign it to a separate inventory for sale at conventions or online.
If you can, combine your storage space with other space, like your office. Superfluous doors and walls mean less usable floor space. In retail, wasted space is wasted money.
Design by Necessity
Some of your store design is a matter of opportunity and availability. If the suite you want has the bathrooms to the left instead of on the right, you can keep it as is, change your design, and probably save several thousand dollars. Engaging in major construction to meet your ideal design is probably not feasible when first opening.
