The X and Why of Retail

 

One of the things I’ve always loved about retail design is the X factors that combined give the Why.

I failed maths miserably thru out school. All those numbers just registered as a blur in my brain, and needless to say I could never get my mind around algebra. What was the point of X and Y?

But I now deal in a slightly different version and they have a story and reality to them that becomes a visual reality and can be manipulated in ways to influence shoppers.

I was quite surprised recently. I met a “retail expert” who is frequently interviewed on tv about retail matters. She is brilliant at numbers and statistics, but when she made a comment about a current trend in the retail world I asked her why she thought it was happening and she had no idea. She could not even come up with 1 suggestion. It wasn’t a trick question and I have numerous ideas about why this retail event was occurring.

There’s so many things that happen on a daily basis in the retail world. Some are obvious and others we aren’t aware of.

Why are the supermarkets are so quiet at 3pm? Because the mums are at school pickup.

Why are the hardware stores are so busy on Saturday mornings? Because the weekends are the time for projects at home and everyone needs their supplies.

Why is there a huge demand for cardamom? Because one of the reality cooking shows is featuring Middle Eastern cooking that week.

Smart retailers know their X’s and Why’s and they make sure they all match up. These are the retailers who order up the big stocks of fertilizer in anticipation for Spring and then move it to a prime visibility location when they hear rain is forecast.

I designed a chain of bakeries for many years. They were about to open a brand new store in a brand new shopping centre. They were known for their award winning meat pies. The night before the opening it started to rain. The baker decided to double the set quantity of pies knowing that the next day was due to be cold and wet all day. An hour later there was another call to double that amount again. This was all happening in the wee hours of the morning and the rain was quite set in by then. Sure enough on opening day every pie sold out with customers looking for even more. Knowing their X factors is WHY they had such a successful day.

A recent headline caught my interest. It was about a Vietnamese food chain opening their first American store in Salt Lake City. The first thing that popped to my mind was that Salt Lake City is the home of the Mormon church. I wondered why Vietnamese food would be popular there. So I googled does Salt Lake City have a large Vietnamese population? Turns out it does and it is rapidly growing. And whilst it’s true that Vietnamese food is not limited to particular nationalities, it always helps to have people familiar with their own style of food who  integrate it into the broader community.

Understanding the unique X factors for each business means that you can design stores and tailor retail to influence WHY we buy.