Between 25-29th June 2018 we’ll be closing our shop to gut the space and build a new and improved customer offer. I thought I’d take the time to explain the details of the project just ahead of the actual build.

The shop was last refit in the early 1990s and in the past 18-24 months it has been a daily struggle to grow the business within those dated constraints which are primarily:

• Space isn’t used effectively both behind the scenes (stockroom) or in the public area of the shop and cannot be optimised further
• the fittings are very dated and the super wood effect weakens our brand
• a partial  2016 refit saw improvements to sales by introducing LED lighting, dedicated nesting tables and a bookshelf area which increased sales by over 100% for those categories
• although the ceiling lighting has dramatically improved the general vibe, the majority of products are still not lit well which doesn’t show products in the best way
• the bays are all slatwall which constraints our options for displaying products, limits the visual merchandising and has poor space/density

We went out to tender and successfully secured the expertise for design as build of ARJ-CRe8. Originally we hoped to complete the project earlier this year but we missed the narrow window. As the exhibition exits through the shop we can only do the work between exhibitions so a June date was set.

We had a reasonable budget, a contractor and a GO date. As with all my collaborative projects we use Basecamp to communicate with all the project team and to keep other interested parties in the loop. I love tools like this as they cut down on meetings and keep a full history of questions and decisions that we can refer back to. It means when we do meet face to face it is super productive. Between February and April we worked together on the design, staff feedback and drawings. In total we’ve had five evolutions of the original design. Each iteration is an incremental improvement to the previous direction and catching missed constraints.

I was keen to completely remove the traditional  “till” area as I believe this isn’t a productive use of space and the future of retail will be till free. However we’re not quite into the future so my colleagues successfully convinced me that being an early adopter isn’t always best. We will test a till free approach in the near future!

Now that the design is in the final build phase we know that the refit will:

• remove the stockroom to give us 20% more shopfloor space and 31 total bays with under unit storage
• allow us to provide a better customer experience with a shop designed and built for a heritage customer
• use the removal of the stockroom to properly implement an effective buying and stockholding procedure – hold less stock to keep as much cash free as possible and not own risky products
• increase serving from one cashier to up to two at the same time which has long been an issue
• improve category management by having clearly defined zones
• allow us to introduce improved security measures [redacted]
• introduce a shop that is aligned to our brand with new colour ways and point of sale
• improve flow from the exhibition area and give a better connected interaction of the exhibition and its related products
• increased high price  point products with lockable units
• allow us to study what we can maximise in this space to inform Project Alfred, our project which seeks to redevelop the building eg should we move the shop in that project or leave it by the exhibition space

We have been busy with lots of small but important detail such as moving key infrastructure, planning how to run a pop up shop in the front hall during the work and how to work with the exhibition team who will be in derig mode.

We expect a significant increase in sales and the hard work begins once the build is complete. We’ll have transformed the space which are in effect is our foundations and we can now set about building a very successful retail offer from these strong beginnings.

Ill let you know how we get on….onwards