The area just inside the door of your shop is known as theTransition Area or the Decompression Area. Thinking of a supermarket, this is where the baskets and trolleys are kept. It is where people adjust to coming inside, unbutton their coats, change their glasses and get ready to start shopping.
Customers tend not to see much in this area and so merchandise is kept to a minimum. For the supermarket, this area will be up to the first 15ft of the shop, for the smallest of independent retailers this will be the area of a large doormat at best.
Behind the Transition Area, the first third of the shop is the Prime Selling Zone. This is where people will see price tickets for the first time and where they will make their first impressions about your shop. Keep this area eye-catching, attractive and average priced – you do not want to deter people at this early stage.
Moving to the back of the shop, this is where the shop’s signature items, also called demand items, are kept. These are the goods that the shop is known for and that you encourage your customers to walk through the whole shop to find. Supermarkets keep bread at the back of the store;
Marks & Spencer have underwear in this area. These are the goods that people come in to buy on a regular basis. But the shops generate further sales by tempting their customers with all sorts of things that they had no intention of buying before they came into the store.
People generally turn right when they enter a shop and this is where seasonal items or particularly trendy items should be placed to generate maximum sales.
Impulse items, that people will buy on the spur of the moment, should be placed strategically around the shop to encourage purchases.
The larger the shop, the easier it is to define these areas and this theory is most easily demonstrated in a shop which is on more than one floor: the ground floor is the first prime selling zone, attracting the greatest number of customers; the first floor will be the second prime selling zone, attracting fewer customers; the second floor with be the third prime selling zone, attracting even fewer customers and so on as you go up the building.
