You own a small business. You’ve saved your pennies, borrowed, and worked endless hours to open your doors. But you aren’t sure how to design your storefront to get that flood of visitors you crave.
Don’t worry! We have you covered here. Several tried-and-true techniques to design a killer storefront will make you the most popular shop on the block! Check them out below.
Come Up With Your Vision
One of the best ways to get ideas for your storefront is to walk about and see what others are doing. Look at the stores on your block that are crowded with customers. Note the ones that aren’t. Pay attention to the stores that are closed. See if you can connect the dots.
You can’t stop a great idea. Focus on the best idea you have and align your design, service, and outreach toward that goal. Remember that trusted brands become like people’s friends – think Nike, Honda, or Apple. Customers feel pride in using their products. You need to make your patrons proud to visit your store.
Polish The Story You Want To Tell
You need to craft the story that guides your small business’s design, ethics, experience, and mood. You began with a vision. Now your job is to put a face, personality, needs, and desires with that face.
To devise an honest story about your company that people can relate to, review your process. If your company manufactures something, think of the workers who make the products’ parts and relate it to the final product. If you sell a product, consider where it originated and sell customers the origin.
Don’t forget to write down your story. Focus on what your business offers and how each patron will enjoy a unique experience. Throw in some drama when you can. People love it. Remember that consumers buy primarily on emotion, not logic. Connect with store visitors by engaging their emotions.
Once you have your story written down, make it fit on a cocktail napkin. That’s the hard part! But getting your story as concise as possible is critical to creating the experience in real life.
Design For Engagement
Customers tend to buy experiences, not products. Provide an unforgettable experience for your customers. If you are opening a restaurant, you aren’t selling food: You’re selling how customers feel when they eat in your cafe.
If you sell children’s clothing, don’t just focus on the shirts and pants. Focus on the lifestyle they will have access to when they wear your products. The idea is to encourage people to have a relationship with your products and brand.
If you can align your vision, story, and service on your store’s experience, your storefront design will emerge naturally.
To create your customers’ experience, remember to focus on all five senses. Create the right mood with appropriate colors and textures, consider music or sound, and make your place smell a certain way. Use effective lighting to top off the effect.
Make The Design Look Like Your Ideas
When you develop a possible storefront design, look back at your vision and ask if your strategy aligns with your vision. Answering that can be challenging, but here are some things to remember:
Your store has three elements. The first part is the storefront, which is the facade, entrance, and sidewalk. A well-designed storefront will make people pause. If it looks interesting, they will go inside.
Next is your display window, and is still part of the storefront. This is where you show your best products or show your work process to engage customers.
Last is the inside of your business. It needs to mesh with the storefront and align with your company’s service and work ethics.
Tell the same story on the inside and outside. If you do that, you will have fully implemented your vision, and you can expect customers to roll in.
