Nowadays retail design, or interior design for retail spaces, is an essential tool for showrooms and sales outlets. Attracting customers and boosting sales is not just a matter of assortment and quality of the offered products. The customer experience on entering the shop and the emotions they feel before purchasing any product are as important as assortment and quality. Fortunately designing stores to create a memorable experience is much easier today. Thanks to 3D design software advanced and intuitive like ArredoCAD Designer, it is possible to draw the retail design of your showroom down to the smallest detail.

How to design stores according to retail design criteria

Improving the experience of your customers is the new paradigm for your business and plays a key role in building customer loyalty in the long term also. Retail store design and planning follow some essential rules to improve the purchasing experience. Obviously creativity plays a vital role, but it is important to know principles and goals from which you can draw inspiration. Here some helpful tips to design stores at best:

Understanding your target customers and their needs

If you want to offer your customers a unique experience you have to know them very well. Understanding their needs, habits and desires allows you to satisfy them saving time and money. When it comes to store design it is crucial to carry out market analyses and, when possible, surveys as well as data analyses regarding sales made and lost. Moreover it is important to carry out an analysis of the location to have a better understanding of the available spaces and which opportunities they offer.

Designing space according to experience

Once you have understood your target customers, you can start designing interiors according to a path that you wish customers to follow. Often, it is in the interest of the sales outlet that the customers visit the whole retail store, so that they can see all the products. At the same time the path must be clear and functional to avoid an overly complicated store layout that could result in a bad customer experience. You therefore have to focus on arranging the shop in a logic and intuitive way bearing in mind what customers see all along the way. When it comes to retail shop design you have to also consider the flow of customers, letting visitors move comfortably through the shop.


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Creating an exciting and captivating experience

The objective of retail store design is to stimulate positive feelings in the client. As every retail designer knows, this type of experience is the result of several factors. In addition to organizing space it is important to focus on volumes, materials and colors that characterize interior design. The harmonious perception of shapes, the most pleasant textures to touch, colors that correspond to the feelings that you want to evoke are elements that you always have to consider. Lighting is another key element to create the atmosphere you like. There is a big difference between warm and soft light with a relaxing and seductive effect and a bright lightwith an energizing effect. In the same way the position of light sources is crucial in distinguishing spaces and enhancing the atmosphere.


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Planning different areas in retail shop design

The spatial subdivision according to the category of products is another basic principle of retail design. You can create it choosing a specific product for each area or differentiating spaces through lighting, styles and furniture. Each area can also reflect a different concept of the experience to be offered to customers, from the space dedicated to unmissable promotions to the one conceived to make customers try out the products on display.

Create a virtual tour to be explored remotely

Technology is a valuable ally in designing retail stores. Take into consideration the possibility to position explicative videos or monitors along the path to enhance customer experience. You can also create a 360 Virtual Tour of the store to offer your customers an interactive preview remotely. If you use a virtual tour with 360 renders you can also easily update your offer with new products or try a different arrangement of the products on display.

The interior design software for retail stores

To make a sales outlet become a unique experience you can use a 3D design software that can make the process easier and the result more accurate. ArredoCAD Designer is one of the most advanced interior design software that offers specific functions for retail stores. Here are some of the advantages for your projects offered by the retail design software:

  • The vast library of 3D elements that can be modified according to your needs, containing also the catalogues of the most prestigious Italian design brands like Molteni, Cattelan, Flos and Garofoli;
  • The automatic insertion of cladding, floors, worktops and plinths that allows to design spaces more easily and quickly;
  • The possibility to customize the elements of the library or to import new elements from SketchUp, 3DStudio or in 3D dwg. or obj. format;
  • Specific functions to manage lighting with the possibility to adjust intensity and Kelvin scale
  • Possibility to navigate 3D projects through the mode RealTimeRender and Virtual Reality;
  • Possibility to create 360 Virtual Tours both with panoramic renders and 360 photographs autonomously or requesting a full service to receive tours already created as well as to share them through a link or a QRCode.


Discover more on the website and request your free trial of ArredoCAD Designer for your retail design projects.