Chapter #8 - Prepping Your Kiosk for the Real World

Marie VanDrisse is back with the next chapter of her kiosk development story. In case you happened to miss 'em, you can check out the previous chapters here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Chapter #8 - Prepping Your Kiosk for the Real World

Planning your kiosk roll out should be a common task in your kiosk program, but many times this is a valuable step that isn't taken.

The kiosk may have been carefully designed and engineered. You might have had a prototype made and had all the peripherals checked out for compatibility. Your manufacturer may have even set up your prototype at its facility and everything is working properly.

If everything is working properly, roll out should be a breeze, right? Wrong. The "real world" is a very different can of worms than your manufacturer's shop floor.

I once had a customer suggest that we set up its kiosk in our facility, test it by having our production team place orders for the concept's food offerings for a couple of days, and then evaluate the functionality of the kiosk based on the test run. However, the more we talked about the idea, the more pitfalls we discovered.

To start, we quickly identified that the normal dayparts that the concept operated during couldn't be duplicated within our facility's operating hours. We also realized that the ebb and flow of traffic to the kiosk would be quite different, too, because our production team has scheduled breaks throughout the day. There would likely be a mad rush during break times and the lunch hour. In a mall setting, typically traffic is more sporadic and spread out throughout the day, with the possibility of a slight rush (generally no more than 10 customers in line at a time) around lunch and dinner hours -depending on the type of fare you serve.

Our production facility, without a doubt, isn't set up like a mall either. In a mall, an employee may have to replenish stock from a kitchen/storage area away from the kiosk. Testing the kiosk in our facility wouldn't help our customer understand how many employees would be needed to service the kiosk. There was no way to determine the amount of time spent outside of the kiosk getting inventory and whether one employee could work the kiosk for an extended period of time.

Lastly, our production team didn't match the customer profile that the concept was trying to target, so there was no way to really measure the utility of the prep stations and tell if there was enough room to assemble menu items.

What it all came down to was that no matter how we tried to simulate the kiosk environment, there was no way we could recreate the experience of an actual customer ordering the product under normal operating conditions. Therefore, we wouldn't be able to really determine if the kiosk "worked." For that, the client needed a pilot program, which is what I'll be discussing in my post. So be sure to stop by next month to find out how to pilot a kiosk project for testing a concept.


-Marie VanDrisse (Connect with me on LinkedIn.)

The Evolution of Green

Green, while still a topic of conversation, is not quite as hot a buzzword as it was a few years ago. In a VSMD.com piece titled "Smart Talk," Anne DiNardo gives us some insight as to why this is: "If five years ago the retail community was thinking about introducing the topic of sustainability into their store design strategies, today they're sharing concrete examples and data of what's already working in the field."

For many companies, sustainability has become a corporate initiative -or at the very least an operational cost-cutting strategy. Having been in the game for a few years, it seems that the conversation has changed from "What can we do?" to "How can we do it better?"

This makes for an exciting, yet challenging time for retail designers. Those that haven't much experience working with green ideas are now finding the need to expand their repertoires while those that have a green portfolio are being challenged to push the envelope further.

And in the end everyone stands to win. Retailers benefit for operational cost-savings, designers grow with the challenge, and the customers are treated to innovation mixed with great design.


-- Liz Blohm

Retail Design's Increasing Importance

DDi Magazine released the results of its "State of the Retail Design Industry 2010" survey earlier this month and it presented a lot of interesting information. One piece that caught my attention was that 49% of survey respondents feel that the "importance of a retail designer's role" is much more important now than in the past and that 57% think "the average retail designer's job importance will rise even more in the next five years."

How can that be? Aren't people making more purchase decisions based on price these days? True, the majority of consumers may be more cost-conscious, but with so many retailers competing on price, eventually factors beyond price (like store design!) are going to weigh into their decisions. Janis Healy, Vice President of Visual Merchandising and Design at Orchard Supply Hardware and one of the survey's participants, explains it like this, "When given an option of a great price versus a great price and enhanced physical environment, I believe they want it all. In a price-competitive market, the retailer who can offer a complete package will win."

Maybe that explains all the innovation happening in retail right now. Another topic covered in the survey, almost 90% of respondent companies had tested out new ideas in recent years. Retailers are experimenting with everything from alternative store formats to new technology. Some are even adding entirely new product categories as a way to enhance the shopping experience -- all of which mean new challenges for retail designers to solve.

I, for one, can't wait to see what's to come in the near future for retail design. If this much has changed during a down economy, imagine the possibilities as we head into recovery.


-- Larry Myer (Connect with me on LinkedIn.)

Color: It's No Afterthought

We've talk about the implications that color selection has on your customers' emotions before. The right color combination can set the mood for a prositive interaction. The wrong colors, on the other hand, could keep customers from even stopping in.

This afternoon I came across a new article that offers more support for this idea. While the content is more geared toward product and packaging color, I think its message is quite pertinent to the store design world as well: color selection should be more than just designer discretion, it should be viewed as a strategic business choice.

"'The first point of interaction is shaped by the color, and color is the most memorable sense,' says Leslie Harrington, the executive director of The Color Association and a color consultant. 'Before anything else, they see color.'" So why not put color's power and influence to work for you and create a great impression from the start?


--Liz Blohm

People Hours

Building out new stores or restaurants is a BIG investment. Most obvious is the money involved, but what new owners may find surprising in the amount of personal time that they could potentially have to spend overseeing build out activities.

First there's the time it takes to find an architect to draft up floor plans for your space. Then there's the time spent soliciting bids from General Contractors, reviewing those bids, and negotiating a construction contract. Your GC may help get your architectural plans through permitting, but if he or she doesn't, you can expect to add a few days-worth of time to your plate filling out forms, submitting plans, and arranging for any necessary revisions. And this is all before construction even starts!

Once construction gets going, there will be the time spent on the phone answering contractors' questions and addressing any issues that come up. You'll also have to set aside some time for placing orders for equipment, graphics, furniture, small wares, etc.. When those shipments start arriving, you'll have to receive them, inspect the items, and file any damage/warranty claims as needed.

This isn't a comprehensive list either. There will be other little tasks along the way that can add up over the entire project. It's easy to see how managing a store build out can quickly become a full-time job. Some businesses have dedicated internal staff that exclusively handles store construction. Unfortunately, not every business owner can afford that luxury, but luckily for them, there are vendors out there that can help lighten their build out responsibilities. And after applying costs to the hours involved, you may just find that it's worth your while to check one out.


-- Troy Schwehr (Connect with me on LinkedIn.)

Case Study: Creating a Prescription for Build Out Success

F.C. Dadson has worked with a variety of clients in our 35 years in business, and we've created solutions as varied as the clients' problems we've solved. The company has created a series of case studies highlighting some of these solutions. Here's an excerpt from our latest case study on one of our valued clients, Doctors Express.

Doctors Express is an urgent care concept that specializes in providing a convenient, lower-cost alternative to the emergency room. The first medical franchise of its kind, Doctors Express sets itself apart by having licensed physicians onsite to see patients and treat a wide-range of non-life-threatening illnesses and conditions.

The Situation
Doctors Express had one location and plans in place to begin franchising. The company's founding team had a feeling the concept had high potential, but being the first franchise in the industry, it remained an unproven business model. This made selling and forecasting franchise locations difficult, but Doctors Express had two distinct advantages on its side:

1. Doctors Express had developed a model that allowed franchisees to operate centers in all states.
2. Banks remained more inclined to lend to medical concepts in spite of the economic downturn.

Doctors Express knew it needed to create a strong build out program that included a branded design and a repeatable, turnkey process that reduced the need for franchisee involvement. With a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) already in place, Doctors Express also knew that the selected partner would need to work within the budget parameters laid out in the FDD. Finally, it needed a partner with flexibility in its processes in order to be able to incorporate existing program elements and accommodate the franchise's indeterminate growth.

Click here to read the full case study and find out how F.C. Dadson created just the build out program Doctors Express was looking for.

Take the Ordinary And Flip It

On Monday I wrote about rethinking store shelving to make it more exciting. Admittedly, this may not be an easy task due to the fact that we're accustomed to seeing fairly similar shelving from one store to the next. Not very inspiring, is it?

But what if you took something normal, like shelving, and flipped it? Turn it on its side. Flip it completely upside down. Now you have something interesting. Of course, some tinkering with the hardware will be necessary to make it functional, but it would certainly make for a sight we don't see every day.

Click here to see how a New York cafe took something as ubiquitous as the book and made it exciting again. (Careful: it can be a little disorienting at first.)


--Liz Blohm

Stand Out Shelving

Retail shelving can be -and often is- quite mundane. I know, I know. The product is always supposed to be the star of the show. But what if your shelving units could be more than just showcases for your products and become an attractive part of the store design too?

How about something like this? It's pretty to look at, shows off the products, and even offers a subtle reference to the company's logo. The shapes and mounting techniques create depth and dimension while the monochromatic color scheme keeps it from being too "in your face" and overpowering the merchandise.

If you're looking to set your brand and your products apart from the rest, a custom shelving solution may be just the thing to give your store design an added edge over the competition.


--Liz Blohm