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As the shops get busier in the weeks before Christmas, the issue of queuing becomes more and more obvious. Queuing is the bane of shopper’s lives and bad experiences can often result in aborted purchases, negative feelings towards a retailer and, sometimes, all-out rage! But how can you avoid these pitfalls? Everybody has a general benchmark as to how long they think a queue will last. For example, you know that a queue at immigration will take forever; the bank will probably take a similar period of time and the post office could take much longer. On the shorter side of things, the cash-point should only take a few moments and the traffic lights will change any second – don’t even bother taking it out of gear. ] But what happens when there is a deviation from the norm? In simple terms, you feel good when you win and bad when you lose. This feeling is often amplified when compared against the progress (or lack thereof) of other queues at the checkout or as you exit an aircraft (not only is your queue not moving, the other queue is making remarkable progress). Similarly, beating that car in a traffic jam never fails to put a smile on your face. Do you remember the last time you were in a packed pub, trying your best to reach over the bar and catch the barman’s attention? All you want is a couple of drinks and you don’t want to miss out on the banter back at the table. You eye up the opposition, make a mental note of your arrival time and, after much jostling, sharp elbows and dagger looks, you finally look the barman in the eye, get the nod and know you are next. At this point you relax a little, knowing you have claimed your place in the world. Even so, you are slightly on edge as you see your predecessor’s money disappear into the till, your neck is out like a giraffe and the barman looks up; only to turn the other way and deal with much later arriving member of the opposition – look at the smirk on their face! Feel the anger rise up inside of you. You feel cheated, wronged and have a distinct prejudice against both the barman and the sly queue jumper. Do you want your customers to feel like this? I wouldn’t think so, but what can retailers do to keep the rage at bay? The answer is distraction. M&S food make a wonderful job of it, bringing out your inner child with a dazzling array of sweet impulse buys (mini yum-yum anyone?) and in one fell swoop make you forget you are in a queue and you are at the checkout in no time (whilst making a significant contribution to profits). But it’s not just impulse buys that beat the queuing blues. Performance works wonders as well; watching a florist create a stunning arrangement makes time fly by…
What were your best and worst queuing experiences?
Following recent guidelines released from the Government, it is now not possible to design schools with curves or glass walls. Instead modular designs are the way to go. This appears to be a bid to reduce spiralling costs of new buildings and standardise school design. While I understand that costs may override aesthetics, surely it’s a step backwards in architectural school design? With the new ‘austerity’ designs, secondary schools will be on average 15% smaller than those built under the previous Building Schools for the Future (or BSF) scheme, with primaries being 5% smaller. The wide corridors and spacious atriums which aided circulation, pupil behaviour and flexible teaching spaces will have to be reduced in order to fit within these spacial constraints. Schools are not just about learning the set subjects. Schools help promote thought beyond the classroom. I believe that design is paramount to this. Creativity, innovation, environment and respect – these are all nurtured in a school environment and are surely enhanced by better surroundings. If there are few ‘ideal’ spaces to bully a fellow student, it’s less likely to happen. If your building promotes a sense of wellbeing and pride, you are less likely to vandalise it. I am reminded of the schools of the 1960’s and 70’s that were dark concrete boxes:
Not the most inviting and nurturing environments to be in. Oddly, these are what everyone has been trying to replace by building large, glass filled spacious buildings. The RIBA have expressed their own concerns about the modular designs. Saying: “The proposed ‘flat pack’ approach is inflexible and will deprive students and teachers of quality environments that are proven to support teaching and learning” You can read more on this here: www.architecture.com My own school was a Victorian building that had limited space for flexible teaching methods. The walls were all white with the obligatory tiled bottom section (which was painted white). The only ‘colour’ was the grey lino flooring or the vinyl covered chipboard desks. Halfway through my school life, a new technology block was built. It would house the new subjects of CDT, sculpture and computing. The interior of this building had un-rendered brick walls and bright red textured vinyl floors. This was futuristic design – well, it seemed that way to a young teenager! It’s not surprising to me that I spent most of my time until the end of my school life in this building. It shaped and cultivated my choices in for college and subsequent career. I am quite sure that had this never been built and my CDT lessons were taught in the white and grey classrooms, I wouldn’t be here now. Head teachers can opt out of the scheme but their schools must be built within the same budget as the modular ones. The architectural industry could see this as a new and different challenge though. Can they create the amazing designs they did before on a fraction of the budget? Is this a restriction on creativity or simply a new way of designing? Whether you are a retailer trying to achieve sign-off on a new store concept or you are a manufacturer of highly specialised equipment in a competitive tender pitch, we’ve got some great news to share with you. Our specialist 3D team are now able to offer ‘true-3D’ visualisation of your products, ideas or projects – a major technology breakthrough that gives your audience an experience like no other. It all sounds very fancy, but what does this mean for our customers? 1. If your meeting rooms have a 3DTV or you have access to a 3D compatible laptop, all of our 3D animations and interactive environments can now be delivered to you in True 3D. This is great for adding an extra dynamic to your presentations, pitches and customer demonstrations. 2. The bit we are most excited about – we believe that bigger is always better, so we have invested in high-end 3D projection technology which is now available for hire throughout the UK. Using short-throw lenses and positioning the projector only a few feet away, we can now fill entire walls with high-def 3D animations. Ask your audience to slip on our active-shutter glasses and take to the stage! We can even send one of our 3D operators along to navigate the interactive models for you, letting you focus on your delivery. Alternatively, get the audience out of their seats and guide them through a life-size, 3D tour of your latest idea. Ross
The Rhubarb Retail news page is full of retail design advice and opinions. This latest post offers 5 tips for small retailers to maximise their retail spaces during the Olympic Games. Check it out here: http://www.rhubarbretail.co.uk/#news Mel
We hear all too often that the growth of multichannel retailing, as great as it is reported to be, has a detrimental effect on our high streets. Indeed a number of retailers either have closed, or are planning to close, a great number of their outlets because of their reducing profitability. These retailers say that they are placing more emphasis on their online offers, or simply blaming on-line shopping for the demise of their physical stores. It is great then to see how some retailers are embracing this multichannel world of retail, using their store estates to assist and further promote online shopping by creating a buy-online-collect-in-store offer. Ingenious really, and obvious! Online sales won’t suffer, in fact their growth will continue, maybe even accelerate. It could be that many people – like myself – who usually put off on-line shopping because they aren’t at home to accept the deliveries, will be encouraged to use the service knowing they can collect in-store at their convenience. The option of buying online reduces the time needed to be spent in a store, so the simple collection option seems much more attractive. And there are still cross-sell opportunities… With careful design and planning of the collection points in store, there also lies an opportunity to encourage impulse purchasing and boost the failing in store sales. A win-win scenario so it seems. C A Design services are in the enviable position of not only having the ability through our Rhubarb Retail interior Design team to create the in store look and feel, but our large and flexible teams of CADS Retail planning experts can also quickly and efficiently provide all the planning support required to ‘roll out’ a concept such as this. Contact our retail team on 01493 440444 for more information. Julie |
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