Know Your Stores Before Your Renovations
August 22, 2023 by Jamie Banks – Before you start rolling out a store renovation campaign, you need to establish a baseline of your stores’ needs. Once you’ve established your baseline, then you can map your road to success. But how do you build a baseline?
Start with a store survey. There are two types of store surveys that can help you in your renovation campaign, but let’s discuss types of renovations and which surveys work best for each situation.
Light Retouch
You need to gain a lift in sales which can be achieved by updating your categories. Industry research has shown that at the minimum, retailers who update their categories every five years see a lift in sales. This is mostly wayfinding, signage and paint.
Brand Update
Structurally and with regards to the store layouts, your retail spaces are up-to-date. However, you refreshed your brand and the complete store needs to comply with new brand standards and marketing objectives. This includes everything in “light retouch,” plus vertical and horizontal surfaces, décor, visual merchandising and a few other items.
Renovation
You have old stores that need to be brought up to 21st century standards for infrastructure, layout, branding and customer service. This is big. It’s everything in the two categories above, plus fixtures, HVAC, electrical and often, the kitchen sink.
So which survey goes with which project? You can use both major types of surveys, but that’s probably overkill except in really old structures.
We recommend the Virtual Store Walkthrough for Light Retouches and Brand Updates. These provide an accurate interior capture of your stores, which is a 360-degree panoramic view. It features accurate measurements to determine placement of POP, graphics, wayfinding and more. The Virtual Store Walkthrough reduces travel to stores, is based on the cloud, and can be accessed by computer, mobile or tablet. Saving travel time is the same as saving money, isn’t it? Now multiply that by the number of stores you need to renovate.
For a major Renovation where the store interior is likely to be demolished and renovated, the Professional Store Survey provides an excellent starting point. This requires developing parameters and questions to find positive attributes and improvement strategies within each retail space. Once completed, this survey can be stored on the cloud, and accessed via desktop or mobile app. As improvements and adjustments are made to each retail location, the survey can be updated to reflect the upgrades.
Once your renovations are complete, you may want to use your store-specific data to track the ROI of your in-store marketing.
There is no “one size fits all” answer to the spectrum of store updates and renovations. Factors include budget, timelines, complexity, staffing and more. After completing hundreds of renovations and updates in the c-store space, we know we can provide you with the right answers to your questions. Contact us today.
