Store Design

The retail industry has undergone a dramatic transformation in the face of factors such as Amazon.com's dominance and an uncertain post-pandemic landscape. To stay successful, retailers have had to adapt their stores rapidly — from reworking layouts to setting up delivery or pickup areas — all while ensuring customer service is still at its highest…

During the early 2000s, while the retail industry was getting battered by e-commerce, grocery stores were seemingly safe. Twenty years — and a pandemic — later, much has changed; e-commerce and delivery services have transformed grocery retail. Today, when consumers visit a store, they enter with much higher expectations. A convenient and smooth, seamless shopping…

The acceleration of e-commerce, two-day shipping, and the rise of experiential design has prompted the evolution of traditional brick-and-mortar from the retailer’s central point of sale into an expression of the brand that adapts to customers’ habits and industry trends. Architects and designers strive to maximize brick-and-mortar’s potential through meaningful and enticing in-person experiences. Looking…

Target has unveiled plans for its next-generation store design. At nearly 150,000 square feet, the retailer's new larger-format stores will optimize additional space in an effort to support same-day fulfillment services and deliver on its stores-as-hubs strategy for fulfillment of online orders. The new store format recently debuted in Katy, Texas, outside Houston, and is…

It’s been long established that music has the power to stir emotion and influence consumer behavior. In 1973, business professor Philip Kotler first addressed the science of sound in retail when he coined the term “atmospherics” for the practice of designing store environments to project a specific image and induce certain behaviors. In an article…

The department store Belk is collaborating with the home goods and furniture retailer Conn's HomePlus to launch a store-within-a-store concept later this year. The new store format, which will launch under a new brand name soon to be announced, will give Belk customers access to Conn's home product categories, including furniture, home electronics and appliances, and…

Even before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19, the brick-and-mortar retail industry was in trouble. Anchor tenants in malls were closing their doors, transforming once vibrant shopping centers into ghost towns. Independent retailers were struggling as they faced strong competition from online stores that didn’t have the high overhead of operating in expensive downtown areas.…

The way people shop in stores is changing. Concerns of safety still exist, and many people continue to practice social distancing. Furthermore, with the emergence of COVID-19 variants, in-store shopping behaviors are prone to shift overnight. Although all retailers are now operating in the same pandemic era, there's no consensus among them on what in-person…

It's not news that the global pandemic has continued to complicate both back-of and front-of-house operations for retailers, but the holidays are coming, nonetheless. Several factors will serve to increase the pressure on physical retail locations this year. There's an increased desire to shop in stores and to shop earlier. Consider: 47 percent of consumers…

In episode 323 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Andre Persaud, chief retail officer of Rite Aid, the trusted, everyday care connector operating over 2,500 retail pharmacy locations across 17 U.S. states. Persaud discusses Rite Aid's RxEvolution strategy, how the business is redesigning the in-store experience for its customers, and the internal cross-functional…