Great Retail Design Ideas Don't Always Come From Designers

Store and display design is generally a team activity. First there is the client. Then you have the design and production personnel. Add to that an installation crew and that’s a good handful of people working together on the same project. Am I forgetting someone? It feels like I am. Someone really important. Oh yeah! The customer.

Considering the fact that customers are the end users of the design, it makes total sense to have their wants and needs represented during the design process. This, however, doesn’t always happen. You might create a really beautiful store, but if your customers don’t like shopping there, what’s the point? There really isn’t one and some retailers are finding that out the hard way.

But others are catching on to this idea of customer-focused design with much success. Some are beginning to ask questions to get to the bottom of what their customers like and don’t like and why they frequent one store and not another. Others are taking to the web and setting up social networks where faithful customers can share their store improvement ideas with the company’s higher-ups.

Sure it’s important to have a company presence in your space, but it’s equally important to have your customers’ interests represented too. Creating a design that balances the two can be difficult, yet incredibly essential. Stop catering to your customers and they’ll go somewhere else. Just ask Starbucks about that.

(Here’s a great article about how the coffee giant is getting back to basics as well as how other retailers are benefiting from a customer focus.)