Some of you might be saying, well of course Store layout and traffic patterns affect sales. I usually think of store layout in terms of placing items where you want your customer to be. But, I never really thought about how a store layout can affect foot traffic until, I saw it with my own eyes. Of course this was a simulation in a Facebook application called Café World.
Café World allows you to layout your own Café. You place the stove where the cook prepares the food, where the serving tables are and where the customers eat. If you have a good layout, the cook is efficient, the waiters & waitresses can clean and serve efficiently and customers will get seated and served in a timely fashion. If your customers are happy, then they tell other customers about it and more customers come. If the customer walks in, but doesn’t see anywhere to sit, they grow impatient and leave unhappy. If the customer walks in and sits down but isn’t served within a reasonable time, they walk out unhappy.
It’s interesting to note that changing the placement of a door, table, chair or even a serving table can dramatically change traffic patterns either for good or bad.
Another interesting thing, is a layout that works for light traffic doesn’t always work well when it gets really busy. Customers have to wait longer and grow more impatient.
I’m sure the larger restaurants, grocery and department stores do traffic flow studies, but I wonder if they do foot traffic simulations like this to see how traffic changes when fixture placement changes.
I think Target matches highest selling products to highest visible locations. Upon entering the newer stores snacks and restrooms are on one side and cash registers are on the opposite. Most people shopping have kids that are hungry so they stop and eat. The rest are likely not going to walk past the cash registers because they just entered the store and are not ready to purchase anything.
The first aisle you walk down is Woman’s apparel and accessories. If you take the first branch to the right it’s baby and kids apparel and accessories. It’s reasonable to assume they have determined women are the biggest buyers and they purchase clothing and accessories for their families.
Since I’m a guy the stuff I’m interested in is; garden, tools, BBQ, patio, auto stuff, etc.. So I enter and exit the store via the garden entrance.
I recently read online Oracle had purchased a company which made 3D software for modeling store floor plans and displays.
Oops this topic was about cafe’s and restaurants……..
That’s very interesting Ray. When I visit WalMart, I enter through the garden area, usually to get to guy stuff. I wonder if they planned it that way 😉 I knew somebody must have developed simulation software to study customer traffic patterns.
BTW: I did ask about department stores too.
I was a regular at the original Peets in Berkeley on Shattuck and Vine during the early 80’s. It was very successful then and still exists today at the same location. From early morning through closing, Peet’s coffee was a destination. College students, construction workers, musician’s, unemployed, street people, artists, writers, and the curious on-lookers all gathered. People would be sitting or standing on all four corners of the intersection drinking coffee, smoking, talking, reading, and people-watching.
You could smell the coffee for at least a block away. The line was usually about 7 to 10 people deep so you had to have patience. The trick was to buy a pound of coffee, a much shorter line, and you would automatically get a free cup of coffee.
A couple weeks ago I dropped by Peet’s on Pacific to buy a pound of Uzuri and they offered me a free cup of coffee. I explained to the girl I was riding a motorcycle with no way to take a cup of hot coffee. So she gave me a “free-cup-of-coffee” ticket. I dropped by after shopping for groceries last Sunday and picked up my free cup of coffee just when I needed it most.
It sounds like they still know how to keep their customers happy.
Here is the link to the Oracle posting
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10055405-92.html