TOP TIP 1 DESIGNING A MORE ENGAGING RETAIL SPACE
Pick the perfect layout
Choose a focal point
Use your live animal habitats as focal points of interest that will create a WOW feature. Free standing habitats for fish, small animals and birds make best use of your central space. By offering 360 degree access, gives customers a fantastic opportunity to interact and view the animals close up from every angle!
Focus on the right
Consider placing your WOW feature at the right-hand front of your store. With the majority of the population being right-handed and right-oriented, retail shopping studies have found that most people turn right when they enter a store. As this is the area customers give your merchandise the most attention, why not inspire them to purchase a live animal at this point?
Create a story
Customer experience is key - improve this experience by encouraging your customer to take a journey through your store. Create a story by considering the positioning of your habitats, lighting and graphics to develop themes e.g. a meadow theme for small animals, a desert theme in your reptile department, deep-sea aquatics, and a jungle environment for birds.
TOP TIP 2 DESIGNING A MORE ENGAGING RETAIL SPACE
Be customer inclusive
Use interactive displays
Opting for free standing habitats and panoramic units allows customers to walk around and view the animals with less restriction. Low-level animal islands are also perfect for children to interact with small animals, whilst keeping them comfortable and secure.
Create an atmosphere
Truly bring your store to life! Implement peripheral lighting to capture attention by highlighting displays to enhance your themed areas. Use under shelf lighting to draw attention to products being displayed. Project lighting onto walls and floor to create a more natural and ‘in-theme’ ambience, whilst complementing your animal displays with associated sound effects to add theatre and bring your spaces to life.
Share your knowledge
It's always important to have approachable staff with sufficient knowledge to help guide and educate customers. Showcasing your expertise and optimizing your petting areas for education with feeding times and animal handling demonstrations enhances engagement with customers, attracting families as well as promoting responsible animal care.
TOP TIP 3 DESIGNING A MORE ENGAGING RETAIL SPACE
Optimize your signage
Use images to attract
Signage helps to keep your store looking well maintained, and can be designed to integrate with your graphics. Images can be used to attract customers by creating a focal point that conveys key information.
Communicate key info
Providing customers with key information is important and ensuring that this is kept up to date is essential. Using innovative magnetic stickers to display flexible information is a quick and easy way to keep your store looking clean and up to date. Clearly communicating information will help elevate staff from answering lots of repetitive questions as well as inform and guide customers towards the correct purchase.
Guide/educate customers
Fun floor graphics encourage customers further into your store, and can be used to create a "safari-like" storytelling experience in your live animal department. Magnetic stickers can also be used on the side of habitats and other vast blank spaces within your store to create an interactive and educational environment for children and families.
