How to enjoy the perfect ambience in your shop
You’ve shopped in every upmarket store, viewing them with all the calculations of a mathematician perfecting an algorithm. They’re clean and pristine, and they’re luxurious in every respect, yet each provides a subtly different shade of decadence in the service it provides to customers.
The defining feature of these stores is clear – each and every one of them aims to satisfy the innate needs of their customers.
When potential buyer walks into your store, they should feel as though they’re stepping into their spiritual home. Maybe you run a record shop or a perfume counter or a retail outlet dedicated to antique paintings. Either way, your shop should be dedicated to fostering the atmosphere that your demographic will enjoy.
Every business owner has their own way of doing this, but there are a few strategies that are guaranteed to help you out.
So when you want to create the right ambience, bear these tips in mind.
Plant life
Even the dingiest of shops can be improved with a little bit of plant life. Like a splash of colour in an otherwise monochrome painting, a simple fern or bouquet of flowers can turn a musty old shop floor into a cheerful environment.
Office plants, for instance, have been shown to increase the productivity of workplaces. This is thanks in part to photosynthesis, the process in which plants ‘breathe in’ carbon dioxide and ‘breathe out’ oxygen, thereby creating a lighter and brighter space.
Oxygen naturally calms us, so it’s best to make the air in your shop as clean as possible. Your customers will feel as though they’re in a happier environment as soon as they walk through your doors.
Vital lighting
There’s a reason why your favourite bar puts the lights down low after 8pm and places candles on every table. Its owners understand that this is a romantic time, a point in the evening when dates are starting and love is potentially in the air.
It’s just one example that proves how effective lighting can be for fostering a specific ambience. Keep your lights bright and glimmering to accentuate your products, or keep it low to evoke a calmer mood.
Naturally, this will mean investing in a dimmer switch for your shop floor. But imagine the mystery that will be created in an antique shop with low lighting and the occasional vintage lamp to illuminate the aisles. Customers will love it.
Front-facing service
Service can be the major atmosphere killer in any retail outlet, and that doesn’t only apply to poor customer service. For instance, no one wants a quiet bookshop infected with an overbearing sales assistant. In the same vein, an introspective shopkeeper isn’t going to function well in an environment with bright lighting and high pricing.
Finding the right tone for customers is a delicate process requiring tact and time, but if you can figure it out you’ll be rolling in cash by the end of the next financial year.
