S teal T his D esign stand out with a unique destination, products and simplicity

well planned store designs are clever and sophisticated but not complicated retail designs can be whatever you want them to be as long as they are done well. busy, fun, exciting, relaxed, minimal, new wave, dark, light, warm, rich. how would you describe your store? how often do you rotate inventory to make your store look fresh? do

we can learn a lot by looking at other businesses outside of our industry for design inspiration. is your store located in the site of an old factory, pharmacy or hardware store? are you in a new strip mall or designing from the ground up? store design dictates the flow of your inventory and the overall feel and brand of your business. here’s my absolute favorite non-MI design

Not the Apple Store

store design can also dictate how much of any item you sell on any given day

“Trader Joe’s sells 10 varieties of peanut butter, whereas most supermarkets sell about 40 SKUs. Both may sell 40 jars a week, but Trader Joe’s would sell an average of four of each type, while the supermarket might sell only one. With the greater turnover on a smaller number of items, Trader Joe’s can buy large quantities and secure deep discounts. It makes the entire business - from stocking shelves to checking out customers - much simpler”.

“A wide selection can lead to shopping paralysis. It also explains why so often people are on their cellphones asking their significant other what detergent to get” Fortune magazine Trader Joe’s September 2010

specialty stores no matter if they are streamlined with minimalist, clean interiors or decorated with warm wood floors, ceilings and paneling or with pieces salvaged from an old factory, the following stores are a few of my favorites for design. these stores often subscribe to the less is more design approach even though they may stock just as much merchandise as a regular department store. GQ magazine November 8, 2010 “Indie Is In” Passionate unknowns are opening their own brick-and-mortars, each with a unique vision of what American men's style looks like now. Never before have there been so many one-of-a- kind, smartly curated shops in America, and never before have they been so influential in driving trends and styles. Why are we not opening “smartly curated” music shops that drive trends and styles? Are we not passionate unknowns with unique visions of what music retail looks like?

J. Press, New Haven, Conn.

Mohawk General Store on Sunset Blvd in Silverlake

Barbour, Portland, Maine

Fjällräven, New York, NY Fjällräven - Swedish for Arctic Fox

Ralph Lauren, New York, NY this is an expansive store showcasing the extensive lines from the Ralph Lauren label. Could you showcase your product lines with multiple displays in store?

The Common, San Francisco, CA “We will have a men's and women's clothing store, Four Barrel Coffee shop, art gallery as well as an event space that will hold art openings, concerts, film screenings, workshops and speaker series. Oh yeah, it is also available for private parties”.

Harv’s Car Washes, Sacramento, CA

Levis Tailor Shop Where are all of the jeans and rack after rack of clothes? Notice the vintage, Americana feel? The lighting, layout and textures? Seating? Floors?

Unknown Location

what is the average time between store remodels? a. 4 years b. 7 years c. 10 years

In 2009 WalMart announced Project Impact, a plan to freshen up their stores making them cleaner, brighter and more appealing.

Before

After

But Can You Go Too Far? John Fleming, the head of merchandising for Wal-Mart U.S. set out to create a cleaner shopping experience that would appeal to more upper-middle-class shoppers. They made store maintenance a priority and rolled out a redesign program that opened up sight lines and made signage more readable. (More Target-y, many said.) Store managers were ordered to clear the Action Alleys completely. Most controversially, Wal-Mart cut by thousands the number of items that it carried in each store, deciding that it would be more efficient to focus on fewer brands. For decades, when shoppers entered a Wal-Mart, they could expect the so-called Action Alley -- the primary traffic artery from the front to the back of the store that crosses aisles -- to be packed with deeply discounted items. "Stack 'em high and let 'em fly!" Sam Walton favored a cluttered presentation.

Do you have the budget to be all things to everybody? If you cram everything into your shop will they come maybe. shoppers want a nice experience but you don’t have to yell “Welcome to insert your company name here” every time a customer walks in the door, like they do at Moe’s.