retail design BY JAYSON HILL Associate Vice President, Retail & Consumer Products, North Highland IMAGE COURTESY OF F ARMSTRONG PHOTOGRAPHY / SHUTTERSTOCK . COM Curb Five store redesigns and upgrades retailers will implement in 2021. shipping/logistics partners to ship or receive items from other retailers, improving selection and increasing in-store traffi c. I APPEAL 2. CLOSING THE LOOP ON THE OMNICHANNEL EXPERIENCE f 2020 was a year of survival and adaptation for retailers, 2021 will be the year they make sense of the seismic shifts they’ve endured, fi ne tuning various strategies as they embed them into the DNA of their companies and storefronts. North Highland’s 2021 Beacon survey helps reveal what senior re-tail managers are thinking. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said operational effi ciency was a high or very high priority, suggesting they intend to spend the year perfecting strategies they implemented hastily when the pandemic fi rst struck. Ful-ly maximizing these investments may not be that much of a stretch: A whopping 100% of respondents to our survey said operational effi cien-cy was very or somewhat attainable. IMAGE COURTESY OF SHUTTEROK / SHUTTERSTOCK . COM IMAGE COURTESY OF JHDT PRODUCTIONS / SHUTTERSTOCK . COM As online and in-store shopping converge, expect retailers to rede-sign stores so they can effectively fulfi ll online orders while continu-ing to deliver a positive in-store experience. Among the retail lead-ers surveyed, 88% said store opera-tions’ effectiveness/innovation was a very high or high priority. Even more (94%) said store operations’ effectiveness/innovation was very or somewhat attainable. Data points are one thing, but how will this translate into actual changes? Following are fi ve ways retailers will reimagine brick-and-mortar locations in 2021: In recent years, increased con-sumer adoption of e-commerce solu-tions has driven an increase in the volume of returns and exchanges at brick-and-mortar locations. There is a multifaceted need to both improve the returns experience and increase attachment sales when customers are in stores. Operational effi ciency to improve the returns experience can be achieved through robust training of associates to quickly manage all transaction types (e.g., online order return, online order from store, exchange for an in-store item, etc.) as well as through pro-viding updated or dedicated space and systems to enable this trans-actional fl exibility. Upgrading to modular and effi ciently curated queuing spaces are imperative to both customer speed-of-service and increased attachment sales. speed of checkout and allow more room for pandemic adjustments and additional merchandising space after the new normal stabilizes. As the push for margin improvement becomes greater, efforts to keep ris-ing store labor costs in check will position retailers to maintain brick-and-mortar profi tability. 5. CURBSIDE SIGNAGE AND PICKUP AREAS 3. CONTINUAL FLEXIBILITY OF STORE SPACES 1. DEDICATED SPACE FOR BOPIS With the shift to increased online shopping and the convenience of “buy online, pickup in store” (BO-PIS), more retailers are seeking to make the shopping experience — no matter how a customer engages with them — seamless. Implement-ing convenience factors like dedicat-ed BOPIS pickup areas or lockers in stores will allow customers to quick-ly retrieve their goods with mini-mal friction. Implementation could be achieved in the following ways: placement of BOPIS areas/lockers in all of a retailer’s stores; collabora-tion between online and brick-and-mortar retailers to fulfi ll online or-ders in partner retailer stores; and partnerships between retail and While specifi c types of long term upgrades to store layouts will be prevalent, retailers also need to maintain nimbleness. The pandem-ic has demonstrated that retailers must adapt to customer demands on product and space allocation quickly. Rapid adaptation in areas such as off-shelf space merchandis-ing, based on continuous insights into consumer demands, is critical to maximizing sales/space effi ciency. 4. IMPROVING THE CHECKOUT EXPERIENCE Retailers that effectively redesign checkout areas for improved cus-tomer experience, labor effi ciency and speed of checkout will be well positioned for future consumer behavior shifts. Focusing on im-provements such as front end and cash-wrap redesigns to push more self-serve options will increase the Convenience for the customer is a key to 2021 retail growth. Reduc-ing the friction and time to pick up items (including adding more pick-up options) goes a long way to estab-lishing customer loyalty, even if it means foregoing impulse purchases. New curbside pickup options con-tinue to emerge as retailers test and learn the process. Once they have mastered these, more permanent space will be dedicated to this fulfi ll-ment method, which customers will welcome. Adjacent industry disrup-tors, such as last-mile delivery op-tions fulfi lled through the gig econ-omy, will also be able to leverage intelligent infrastructure invest-ments such as curbside pickup sys-tems and signage enhancements. While many of the current shifts in the design of brick-and-mortar re-tail spaces have been driven by the current pandemic, the changes will position retailers well for the post-pandemic world. It is imperative to manage these near-term capital in-vestments with the future in mind, realizing that sales and fulfi llment channels each have their own re-spective optimization needs that impact the overarching goal: op-erational effi ciency. Pragmatic and forward-looking planning, based on continuous analysis of consumer preferences, can be the difference between becoming an industry lead-er and an industry laggard. Jayson Hill is an associate vice president in the Retail & Consumer Products practice at North Highland, a change and transformation consulting fi rm. www.RetailRestaurantFB.com 14 RETAIL & RESTAURANT FACILITY BUSINESS MARCH 2021