The Importance of Fitouts for Small Businesses
When a customer enters your business, the fitout is the first impression they will have of your company, your culture, and what kind of value you provide. All too often, businesses don't make an effort to choose a shop fitout that truly reflects confidence, professionalism, and knowledge of the industry. But the impact of your fitout on customers, and even employees, should not be underestimated. For small businesses, here is why fitouts are incredibly important.
Your Brand
Different styles of interior attract different kinds of people. For example, if you want to attract elderly customer and clients, you would design your space differently than if you were aiming for a young, hip demographic.
Every interaction your customers and employees have with your business, even in the retail context, will affect how they view, think, and talk about your business. The wrong fitout could attract the wrong clientele or even drive your desired market away.
Customer Satisfaction
Your retail fitout will affect your customers' moods in a positive or negative way, depending on what you do. A clean, easy-to-navigate layout will make people feel at ease, and make them much more likely to shop around for longer.
Colors also affect psychology, so be sure to include calming, natural colors if you are in a spa industry, and exciting, racy colors if you are selling something like fitness products.
In addition, consider including chairs or some kind of seating arrangement for visitors who are waiting on other shoppers. This will encourage their partners to stay longer without feeling hurried.
Employee Harmony
It is true that employees are also affected by their environment. Think about the kind of philosophy you have in your small business, and make sure everything contributes to it.
Employees that are happy at work will get along better with each other. The result is that they'll be more motivated to sell for you, and be more productive. Of course, this leads to more sales and revenue for your bottom line.
Missed Sales
Nothing is worse than knowing you had a potential customer in your store, but they left because of the shop fitout. If you don't put quality time into deciding the furniture, lighting, look and feel of the front counters, and everything else in your business, you can expect to miss out on a lot of sales.
In addition to the design, the layout can help you station employees near entrances and exits in order to ask questions and prevent customers from leaving confused. Who knows? Perhaps they really wanted to buy something but were afraid to ask. Now's your chance to save the sale with a proper retail fitout.
For businesses everywhere, the client or customer's first interaction with them is a lasting one. That's why it's so important to have a fitout that expresses who you are and allows your customers and employees to feel a sense of community and productivity.
With a motivated workforce, and a brilliant shop fitout, you'll have no problem pleasing all of your customers and clients.
Author Credits ::
This post comes from Archie. He has created this article with help from resources he gained from Total Fitouts, an Aussie company doing great things with small businesses looking to make their shop stand out from the pack.