We’ll be writing a short update each day about how M Shed shop refit is progressing. Ahead of the refit the wider team used Basecamp to discuss the new shop design and for all decision approval. Lots of time has been spent recently on the finer details including bay depth, lighting of bays, till location and opportunities for adding value in the design. Let’s go!

Pssst you can read about our last refit changelog at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in 2018 which has since sales increase 51% in 12months

Friday 5th July

install Trim, slat, glass doors, locks, first lit bay, clean, merchandise…open 16:30 and took our first sale (#236160 for £29.44 to tourists).

Thursday 4th July

At the beginning of the day I was quietly confidently telling folks we’ll be done by end of Friday. Not 100% all singing and dancing and not a minimum viable product (MVP) but “good enough” to trade. Im not sure anyone believed me though (chuckles) as on the surface it did look far off. However much of that was due to the tools/cutting areas giving the impression of being far off.

Our electrician did a stellar job of getting power running to the till area and completing the wiring of the bay lighting and TVs. The bay lighting isn’t hooked up yet but this will be completed early next week and doesn’t pose an issue to trade over the weekend.

The shop fitters completed the final bays and slat wall. At the same time a few helpful hands (THANKS!) added the glass shelving. We only had a few book shelves on-site but ARJ-CRE8 super kindly have arranged for the rest to be delivered on Day 5. We started to pack down the temporary pop-up shop and transfer products to their new homes. By the end of the day we were all tidying up ready for a deep clean tomorrow morning. I was even reunited with my favourite tool, the pallet truck (long standing joke!) which we put to good use – a pallet truck is the workhorse of moving “stuff” with ease.

Helen and I will make a call about re-opening the shop tomorrow (end of the day) but I can’t see why we won’t be in that position by lunchtime… last big push which is mainly going to be getting product out.

Thanks to everyone who has been giving words of support, lending a hand or making jokes!

See you at 7am to help us move products right?

Wednesday 3rd July

Day 3 was very productive!

The shop fitters were able to complete the perimeter bays as shown below. Above the bays we’ve decided to make frames to hold graphics and tighten up the brand. I originally wanted to have digital screens but the cost didn’t outweigh the benefits and we can use some of our historic photos from around the harbour. Also the team didn’t like my idea which is fine!

In addition to some more decoration our brilliant in-house electrician had his first day on the project. He has the task of working out how best to power the LED bay lights, till area and our digital screens that will be behind the till. With the welcome news that the shop fitters expect to be finished early, our timeline has moved up. I asked Rob to focus first on powering our till as I have my fingers crossed we can then trade Friday. Once the till (shown below) has power we “can” be in business. After the till lighting the bays is the second priority then finally our digital screens.

In the above photo there is a giant hole in the floor! This was under a bit of wall we removed and that needs to be “made good” so thankfully our ever awesome operations team arranged for a steel plug to be made today to save the day. Snags are always going to crop up and having professionals all around you makes them disappear pretty quickly. The hole needed to be filled as 1/2 of a bay unit was due to be installed at that spot.. thanks everyone who kicked into action to resolve today.

Our graphics have also gone to the printers today and will be installed Monday. In a project like this I’d much rather add new elements one by one rather than have tried to push too hard for all elements and contractors to work around each other. Having the project be ahead gives even greater buffer. Onwards!

Tuesday 2nd July

Day 2 has been rapid and already has enough done to see it coming together in real life as opposed to doodles and words! One set of contractors set about decorating and also building a new room to support our back of house function for the museum. Our design team chose the colour scheme which is designed to reinforce the brand and make the products shine.

The shop fitters concentrated their efforts on installing the window bays and even found time to begin on the far back wall. More fittings arrived too such as glass shelving, our new custom marble table and other book tables. We expect each table to generate £5,000+ in annual sales.

We made a design decision to install bays directly in front of our windows across most of the space instead of retaining a “view” from the outside into the shop. We initially wanted to retain the “view” into the shop or use beautiful visual merchandised displays. However the displays required too much space which would reduce our shop floor area by 1m+. And keeping windows would eliminate our ability to increase overall “shoppable” space which is the aim of the game. We also took advice from a professional Visual merchandiser and between us the recommendation was “bays over beauty”. If it doesn’t add valuable then don’t do it. In the end a sensible comprise for budget reasons and to still retain some natural light at eye level was to have bays on the sides and keep the central of the windows open.

The decision to put bays in the window produced a new opportunity for us. We are now able to place graphics on the windows to promote our shop offer. Originally we planned to apply the graphics to the inside of the windows but missed the window of opportunity (bad joke) so instead will apply to the outside of the windows. This is actually a blessing in disguise as it now means we can change the graphics more frequently without a lengthy process of having to remove the bays to work. Below is the draft design we will send to the printers this week. You’ll see that two windows are to remain free and “viewable” from the outside. Natural light will still come in from the top panes.

In the windows that are in the foyer area there is the opportunity to expand beyond promoting retail to help explain what M Shed is and what we have on offer. Tomorrow i’ll ask our designer Fi what is possible in the four bays shown below.

Monday 1st July

ARJ-CRE8 arrived on site at 07:00 and were greeted by our Retail Manager Helen. Today’s schedule was to focus on the stripe out the current old shop fittings. The photo below shows a bare shop within just a few hours. Claudia and Helen spent the day helping where possible and getting our temporary pop-up shop ready.

Once the old shop was stripped out the team then brought in lots of the new shop bays and fittings. At the same time, anther company were moving various sensors and alarms as we need to re-site lots of “bits” that were built into the original reception area. Fi, our 2D designer was also finalising graphics for the walls and windows. Onwards!

Sunday 30th June

The last day of the current shop as we know it. Once the shop closed at 5pm a number of the team packed away all products on display. Products were either moved to the temporary “pop-up” shop area in the foyer or moved upstairs to our meeting room which is acting as our transit space during the project. At 07:00 the shopfitters from ARJ-CRE8 will be on-site to begin the project proper. Let’s hope the skip arrives earlier at day 1 is largely taking out the existing shop fittings and fixtures.

May I introduce the Retail Performance dashboard. Since taking on retail in 2015 we’re proud to have increased sales by 60% in three years. We’ve gone from loss making to profitable  and at the time of writings we are up 22% compared to last year. What that really means is that our retail efforts will contribute £100,000+ profit back to the service which keeps 2 or 3 staff outside of retail in employment. I jokingly say that our sales of ‘fart whistles’ are literally keeping others in gainful employment!

I regularly tweet stats of our retail performance so thought i’d now take that up a notch and share a dashboard that you can use to see the data yourself. The digital team are working on some much slicker visualisations but for now this will do.

The Retail Performance dashboard, powered by Google Data Studio .

Things to add include:

• Average transaction value
• Conversion
• Spend per visitor
• Multiple year comparisons – See data from 2014-15 onwards

After much planning, preparation and excitement the week of 25-29th June 2018 was the building of our shop refit at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. The first time in our history that we’re commissioned a specialist cultural heritage shop fitting firm, ARJ CRE8. It is the end of the week and many people have worked very long hours to smash out the out shop fittings and build us a shop that we can be proud of…and most importantly increase profit.

The shop is complete and ready for customers on Saturday. We have a small snagging list and need to visual merchandise properly but this is scheduled for early next week. For now we just need to ensure 100% of products are available and nothing is missing /left in storage.

Today is a proud moment

Thank you to everybody who encouraged us throughout the week and/or lent a hand.  A special thanks also to Bristol Museums Development Trust who agreed to significantly contribute to the cost of the project. I can’t thank Andy, Jon and the team from ARJ CRE8 enough for their professionalism, problem solving ability and relentless cheerfulness!

Now let’s go out and prove you don’t need a stockroom…..hehe

ChangeLog

• 07:20-10:00  GO! GO! Go! Moved as much products as possible from storage to the shop and our holding space. Big thank you to the staff who volunteered some time to make stuff around
• 07:45 – 17:00 Finished up adding doors to bays, shelving, lighting adjustments and painting
• 11:00 accessories arrive from courier to enable visual merchandising of the shop
• 12:00-16:30 a few of our international volunteers came to the rescue and helped us prepare shelving and get products out on the shelves.
• 15:00-17:00 move the pop-up shop fittings back into the shop and setup the tills and digital signage
• 15:30 sold to our first customer despite being technically closed! A visitor really wanted our Millerds Map so I showed him our new bay and we made the sale!
• 17:00-18:30 vacuum, clean and move out any non-critical products and accessories
• 18:31 Shop is ready to open Saturday morning

• 07:30-10:00 move stock from deep storage
• 10:00-13:00 move bay units into position
• 13:00-18:30 wire and light each bay, reconnect air-handling which appears to have been out of action for years, finish cutting ceiling tiles
• 17:00-18:30 move products to outside shop ready for restocking Friday morning

• Build bay bases and measure out precise bay locations
• Wire perimeter
• Ordered accessories for displaying products
• Wire networking to shop
• Empty final waste to skip

• 07:30 Ceiling fitter arrives onsite to fit ceiling tiles on existing tracks. Quickly discovers that all the track is obsolete and needs to replace entire track
• 08:00 Zak tears shirt moving pallet full of ceiling tiles
• 08:30-10:00 set up pop up shop in front hall. Shop takes £496.35 gross during day
• 08:30-11:00 Replace obsolete circuit board
• 08:00-21:00 Continue work to perimeter walls. Edge of ceiling complete and 50% of ceiling track fitted

• 06:30 Skip arrives…in wrong location…… 2hr wait for move
• 8am Contractors arrives and unloads tools
• 08:30 Contractor begins to gut existing shop walls and ceiling
• 10:00 Retail team begin to review products for pop-up shop which will run 26-29th June
• 09:00 Sparks begins to review wiring and remove old…discover circuit board is ancient so we get in Carters to assess and agree to replace on 26th
• 10:00 Waste for skip removed to front of building and loaded into waiting skip
• 14:05 [redacted!]
• 14:15 Building Practice team called to assess wall
• 15:00 Large lorry of 38 shop bays arrives and is unloaded
• 16:00 Stone mason’s make wall safe by carefully taking wall pillar apart without further damage to each stone which is then stored
• 17:00 Second large van arrives to deliver central bay units and small fittings which is unloaded
• 17:45 Remaining waste loaded into van
• 17:45 to 18:15 Clean up of route
• 19:30 Evening private hire event starts

• Team of 6 empty all shop products and move to holding location
• Old fittings e.g shelving removed to storage or for recycling

The shop just hours before the refit to rip out the stockroom, install new bays and maximise the space

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

 

 

 

 

 

Just before summer started I wrote about taking the plunge having an additional small shop in the front hall at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery throughout the summer. Summer is over and so is our shop, for now. This post is a summary of performance. In short, the shop was worth doing with the following results:

• 10% of total sales for the month or £5,300 net sales
• 939 orders
• 2% conversion (confirmed it was additional sales not just taking sales from main shop)
• Same ATV as main shop despite selling far fewer products
• Staffing costs were covered by moving the second retail assistant from the main shop
• £400 on a whacking huge shop sign (pictured) and a few units to supplement existing available units
• Answered countless public enquiries

I would have been kicking myself if we hadn’t tried to push the retail needle and i’m glad we did. We had our most successful month on record and met our income target. The front hall shop helped us over the line in this respect. We started on day 1 of the school summer holiday without much of a plan other than a hunch the products should be suitable for kids and tourists. Over the course of the project we chopped and changed the products as the teams powers of observation dictated.

Staffing

Finding staff at short notice proved to be a challenge with a few moments but fortunately the team including our brilliant casual pool came to the rescue. I asked the team for feedback throughout the project. Everyone on the front hall shop said they enjoyed the shifts and kept busy in the quiet periods by pricing and preparing products. As expected they also answered lots of public enquiries and raised awareness of our retail offer. The main shop coped with having one person instead of two but this made their work full-on and its much appreciated. We will use the feedback to see how we can better ease the load in the coming year, especially dealing with deliveries.

Product selection

We used the existing products from our range and started with best sellers with a Bristol theme. We thought this would appeal to the tourists. However the Bristol theme didn’t really push the needle so we switched to more ‘kids’ and ‘home’ which proved successful.  I really wanted to try a selection of jewellery but the hall is used frequently for evening events so we decided this could wait until a future project.

Positive fringe benefits

We don’t have staff permanently in our front hall anymore so having staff here was good for the public enquiries. The hall is large and having visitors milling around the shop gave a nice vibe to the space. Staff received lots of positive comments about the offer and many said they’d be back for Christmas shopping. Some visitors completely miss the fact we have a shop so this made sure 100% knew we had an offer.

Next time

I have decided that the front hall shop should come back at high visitor times so October half-term and then from late November until the end of the school holidays. We need to plan the range further in advance and be very mindful that December is peak evening event season so everything must be easily movable. We did indeed push the needle.

Onwards!

Each year until at least 2022 we need to grow our retail revenue and profitability by 10% or greater. At Bristol Museum & Art Gallery our retail is typical of the sector in converting about 10% of visitors into shoppers. For us, this will not be enough to do what we need to do. But we must hit our target.

To work out if you have any hope of making your target you need to do a little maths:

• Divide the total number of visitors by the expected number of shoppers to get your conversion rate e.g 10%
• Take your expected Average Transaction Value (ATV) and multiple this by your conversion rate to get a baseline amount of sales revenue you expect to generate – remember sales are not profit
• Take your baseline expected sales and divide by the expected visitor numbers to get your Spend Per Head (SPH)

The problem should be obvious…. an average is basically an assumption that IF A + B + C happens then success!

It is good to have a working set of data, averages and assumptions to use as a baseline but we can’t run our retail on assumptions and need to try everything to maximise sales. I know that to have more confidence in our programme we need to keep poking the box to try to positively increase our conversion and thus sales.

The best way to get the conversion up to is raise awareness to the visitor that we have a shop offer and try to affect behaviour. Our front hall has 100% of our visitors passing through.

During the summer holiday we’re testing the idea that more exposure should increase sales by introducing a small shop located in the front hall. This project will inform our future plans for growing the retail business which may include moving the location of the main shop.

The outline business case is below:

1. A visually attractive retail offer located in the front hall will undoubtedly increase awareness of a retail offer in the Museum. Although improvements have been made to the entrance of the main shop including introducing a large bookstand and jewellery stand, some visitors still miss the retail offer. This project will hopefully encourage impulse buying and whilst signposting to the main shop either now or for Christmas.
2. As an example we used a pop up shop for Chinese New Year which increased sales by 18% on the previous year 2015-2016. This also avoided the big queues in the shop and congestion in the entrance and exit in the shop which aids the visitor experience
3. There will be almost no investment costs, as we already have the equipment needed to set up a small shop.
4. Staff costs will be met using the current budget by moving the second retail assistant to the front hall. The downside of course will be less ability to deal with deliveries and some customers who want assistance.
5. The shop in the front hall will be open daily during summer school holidays 24th July -1st September and be mobile enough to be able to close and move for any evening events.
6. The space taken for the shop would measure 9ft (2.7 mtrs) by 11ft (3.4 mtrs).
7. Meeting the potential for growth – going on last year’s August figs of ATV at £6.18 an increase of 5% conversion could lead to an increase £10,000.
8. Hopefully a secondary benefit is that this will reduce queue pressure on the main shop
9. Use the opportunity to engage the visitors about our cafe and exhibition Pliosaurus

So how did we do the first week?

Sales in the front hall accounted for 13% of sales. The first two days we were finding our feet so i’d expect this to increase in the coming week. At this stage we can’t tell if this has simply taken a share of the main shop’s sales or increased sales overall… we need to compare a few data sources and experiment with the product range…. watch this space!

Customers buy what they can pick from the shop floor or online catalogue. Not what is “on its way from a warehouse” or “gathering dust” on our stockroom shelf. Stock not available to the customer is therefore waste. A waste of committed money (cash flow concern which  immediately introduces risk) and a waste of space in our shop stockroom which in turns reduces overall shop floor space and slows staff looking for product.

Because “Buying” is the most critical of the four pillars of retail, it seems the sensible place to focus our attention on to gain further improvement. I’m going to challenge ourselves to use 2017-18 to maximise our buying by refining the workflow.    This will be a collaboration between me, retail, user research and our digital team.

At present we do our buying like any other retailer, we order by supplier when we feel or notice heavy product depletion. Furthermore at any one time we’re “holding” about 10% of our annual total stockholding in our stockroom and another 10% on the shop floor. If it is on the stockroom shelf it has zero chance of being sold.  In addition to having a costly quantity of product hanging around, the space used to hold our product could potentially be converted into public shop floor space. For example at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery there is a false wall which conceals our stockroom which is about 8m in length with a depth of 1.4m. If we’re about to improve how we buy, it is possible to push this wall back further and gain that space as public floor space that could be used for 2-4 nesting tables worth £10,000+. The challenge of course is that would reduce our total stockroom space by 2/3.

If we can nail our understanding of what to buy and when, this would unlock the potential to carry out operation “shrink the stockroom”. Order exactly what we need when we need it and not before.

The upsides would be:

•  Move to a new process of ordering “just in time”
• reduce stockroom size thus freeing up new floor space for customers worth £10,000+
• reduce “out of stock” scenario by improving the buying process
• order by need not assumption
• reduce ordering time across the full year
• reduce owning costly stock that may not sell which also takes up space
• maximise available money set aside for buying products that sell
• Reduce time lost by staff who have to hunt around a big stockroom
• Heavily reduce human interaction which will reduce our cost per transaction and help us move to being digital by default
• Allow retail manager to focus on other tasks

 

Customers buy what they can pick from the shop floor or online catalogue. Not what is “on its way from a warehouse” or gathering dust on our stockroom shelf. Stock not available to the customer is therefore waste. A waste of committed money (cash flow concerns and thus an introduction of risk) and a waste of space in our shop stockroom which in turns reduces overall shop floor space and slows staff looking for product.

Because “Buying” is the most critical of the four pillars of retail, it seems the sensible place to work on iterating to gain further improvement. I’m going to challenge ourselves to use 2017 to maximise our buying workflow.

At present we do our buying like any other retailer, we order by supplier when we feel or notice heavy product depletion. Furthermore we “hold” about 1/4 of our stockholding in our stockroom. If it is on the stockroom shelf it has zero chance of being sold. In addition to having a costly quantity of product hanging around, the space used to hold our product could potentially be converted into public shop floor space. For example at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery there is a false wall which conceals our stockroom which is about 8m in length with a depth of 1.4m. If we’re about to improve how we buy, it is possible to push this wall back further and gain that space as public floor space that could be used for 2-4 nesting tables worth £10,000+. The challenge of course is that would reduce our total stockroom space by 2/3.

If we can increase our understanding of what to buy and when this would unlock the potential to carry out operation “shrink the stockroom”.

The upsides would be:

• move to a new process of ordering “just in time”
• reduce stockroom size thus freeing up new floor space for customers worth £10,000+
• reduce “out of stock” scenario by improving the buying process
• order by need not assumption
• reduce ordering time across the full year
• reduce owning costly stock that may not sell which also takes up space
• maximise available money set aside for buying products that sell
• reduce time lost by staff who have to hunt around a big stockroom

The first major step forward has been moving to a fully digital ordering process to minimise the steps required for that particular part of the system. We use a combination of Shopify reporting and google spreadsheets to do this. Our internal system for generating purchase orders currently prevents us using automated ordering directly to the supplier.

I think the next step will be to understand the rhythm of how often each product is sold AND what minimum order size suppliers can accept.

Myself and the team will write about our successes and challenges throughout the year. It won’t be easy but nothing worth doing is!