4 Fixtures That Define Your Business Space
Designing your first brick-and-mortar operation is an exciting time. Unfortunately, unless it’s a restaurant, most first-time businesses don’t give enough thought to the design elements that will create an inviting yet unique atmosphere that will keep customers coming back time and again. Here are four fixtures to consider carefully when you make your plan.
1. The Doors
Sure, you can install a standard glass door, but your entry is the first impression your customer has of your business. When you look at Ellison doors New York you’re making an investment in that first impression. Is your door hands-free for the post-pandemic climate? Is it wide enough for easy wheelchair accessibility? The metals, woods, and glass color all say something about you. Doors can be edgy, warm, or classic.
2. Lighting
Once you’re thinking about the interior, focus on your lighting. It’s the one element that most people think they don’t notice but which actually strongly influences them. Walk through an older office building, hotel or restaurant that hasn’t updated its lighting and you’ll see that it can make a space look dated immediately. Use your lighting to highlight products, to draw customers to particular portions of the store and to show everything in its best light, literally. Poor lighting can wash out your products or make them hard to see.
3. Threshold Area
The first space that customers see on entering your store is their initial experience with your products. Don’t let them walk in to see a cross-section of your aisles or a structure that blocks their view of the interior. Customers are transitioning from the outside to your store. Think about how light might affect their vision, limiting their ability to read signs and making them miss products. Design an open plan at the front with your larger offerings in limited quantities that can also be found further back in your store.
4. Displays
There are plenty of inexpensive grocery-store quality displays out there, but when you’ve planned a color scheme, the right lighting and a beautiful threshold, it’s worth it to invest in displays that continue your theme. Custom displays are an extension of your marketing, reflecting your brand, whether that’s natural wood for a natural food store or white tubular racks and sleek shelving for an upscale boutique.
Taken together these four elements help brand your business, keep it from looking cheap or dated and direct your customers’ attention right where you want it: on your products.
