Cracking the perfect grocery store layout is tough — and when you hear stories of the various consultants and researchers that big chains use to optimize their store design, it might seem futile to try something new.
That’s simply not the case. Refreshing the design of your grocery store is one of the most impactful ways to retain customers, boost sales, and cut costs.
Not sure where to start? We’re here to help. In this article, we’ll break down essential design elements and give you six easy grocery store design ideas to try in your store.
Elements of Grocery Store Design
These are some of the major elements of grocery store design.
- Colors and materials: Colors and materials for your floors, paint, signage, aisles, and more will go a long way toward determining how people see your store.
- Lighting: A store should be well-lit without feeling too bright or artificial. Try to use as much natural light as you can.
- Store layout: Arrange aisles to create a logical traffic flow and group items together logically.
- Signage and displays: Create signage and displays to help people navigate the store and highlight sales and products.
- Storage and receiving areas: Make sure storage and receiving areas are out of customers’ way, yet accessible enough to quickly access stock when you need to.
- Sound: Choose welcoming music or ambient noise that’s not overly distracting.
You probably won’t have the time (or money) to tackle all of these elements at once. Instead, take an honest look at your store and start with the most impactful areas for your business.
6 Grocery Store Design Ideas To Try Today
Refreshing your grocery store design doesn’t mean completely tearing down your store and starting from scratch. Instead, take a more deliberate approach to where you place products and what styles you use.
Here are six ideas to try out in your store.
1. Be Personable and Unique
While we could give you plenty of examples of how big chains calculate their look or show research into the careful arrangements of big grocery stores, a simple fact remains: you are not a big grocery chain.
Nor should you try to be. While following grocery store layout best practices is not a bad idea, you can’t build a unique identity trying to imitate your bigger competitors.
Instead, build a layout and personality that reflects your passions and customers. People go to local grocers and food markets for a unique experience, and the more you can deliver on it, the more successful you’ll be.
A few examples:
- Is there an aspiring artist on staff? Draw some fun characters on your signage!
- Do you specialize in fresh produce? Make your produce the centerpiece of your store!
- Do you work with local food suppliers? Create signage that highlights your local partners!
- Do you run an international market? Decorate for holidays, showcase unique ingredients, and share recipes!
When considering the rest of the items on this list, try to balance what’s effective with what feels like you. A personal approach will pay off and help your store stand out.
2. Place Complementary Items Together
Have you ever wandered into the chip aisle and suddenly hankered for salsa? Lo and behold, there’s a selection of salsas nearby! Is it cosmic coincidence or just good planning?
Cross-selling is a highly effective grocery store design idea. Done well, it’s not just a sales technique but can also make your store more convenient for customers.
Here are a few more examples of cross-selling in grocery stores:
- Placing coffee filters, moka pots, or french presses in the coffee aisle
- Placing salad dressings next to the mixed greens in the produce section
- Having a selection of complementary herbs and spices near a meat section
Educational signage is a great tactic to make cross-selling even more effective. Imagine a small display next to your apples, with a sign that says, “Want to make a fantastic fruit salad?” The sign could include a recipe and the ingredients for the salad right there.
You can also use the sales data on your POS system to see if any items are frequently bought together.
You can still cross-sell even if dedicated aisles already exist. Take the chips and salsa example above. If you already have a separate condiment aisle, you can still set up a small standing display near the chips with some best-selling salsas and dips.
3. Use Warm, Inviting Colors
A surprising amount of thought goes into the colors stores use on their logos, signs, and materials — and for good reason!
Color can directly affect how people perceive your brand before they even start exploring your store. If you look more closely, you’ll notice that companies within the same industries often use similar colors in their stores and logos.
Whether you’re creating signage, choosing paint, or designing a logo, be deliberate with your color choices. We recommend using warm, pastel colors to create a feeling of freshness and vitality throughout your store.
Over time, customers will learn your brand colors subconsciously (e.g., if you always use the same shade of orange sticker for sales items).
The materials you pick have a similar affect on customers. Handmade materials like stone and wood can create a more “homemade” feeling than metal and wire.
4. Ensure Your Online Design Matches Your Physical Space
Once you have a color scheme picked out, don’t forget to apply those colors to your online accounts to create a consistent feel between your online presence and your physical store.
This includes things like your:
- Website
- Social media accounts (profile picture, etc.)
- Newsletter
The more consistent your branding is, the more it will stick in people’s minds. It will also help build trust using your website for local pickup and delivery.
Imagine you go to a great local grocer and want to buy from them online, only to find a website that aesthetically looks nothing like the store you went to.
You’d probably assume you found the wrong website or that it’s out of date. And just like that, you’ve lost a sale.
5. Make Full Use of Signage
Signage is an incredibly common fixture in retail and one of the most undervalued tools in effective grocery store design.
Investing in clear and effective signage serves many useful functions in grocery stores.
- Navigation: Clear aisle and section signs reduce frustration by helping people find exactly what they’re looking for faster.
- Education and storytelling: Share recipe ideas, give people more information about a local supplier, or highlight your store’s unique story.
- Marketing: Use eye-catching signage to highlight special promotions, holiday sales, and more.
Create a mixture of permanent signs (e.g., wayfinding signs for your deli section) and reusable signs (e.g., a standing chalk sign for short-term sales and promotions). For best results, make sure any printing on your signs is large and in legible font.
6. Use Displays That Are Appropriate for Your Store’s Size
You’d be surprised how many small grocery stores we’ve visited that have enormous displays for their fresh produce. So big that a lot of that produce will go bad before it gets a chance to sell.
Bigger isn’t always better, especially if you have a small space to work with. Investing in smaller displays maximizes your space and reduces food waste. You can then use that saved space for promotional displays or more product variety.
Not sure where to start? Use the reports on your POS systems to see inventory turnover and bestsellers metrics and decide which sections you could safely downsize.
Keep Your Grocery Store Running Smoothly With IT Retail
Implementing a new grocery store design idea isn’t guaranteed to work — and that’s OK. The important thing is to be deliberate.
Every layout change you make should have a distinct goal associated with it. For example:
- If I downsize the current apple display in the produce section, I will cut food waste by X%
- By placing a standing display of dips in the chip aisle, I hope to boost dip sales by X%
- If I use new stickers for discounted items, I hope to increase sales of promotional items
They don’t necessarily have to be precise, but having a metric in mind will help you measure their success. Grocery store layout is an iterative process, so don’t be afraid to try different tactics out until you find some strategies that work for you.
You'll need the right tools to keep track of those key metrics. IT Retail has over 25 years of experience working with independent grocers and supermarkets to make products tailored to their unique challenges.
In addition to simplified inventory management and reporting, our software includes customer loyalty, e-commerce support, and other features that make modernizing your grocery store a breeze.
Schedule a custom demo today to learn how IT Retail can make running your store easier than ever.
