As the seasons change, so must high streets. Summer creates a very different landscape for shoppers when compared with winter. Customers are less likely to be drawn indoors, wanting instead to be outside in the sunshine while retailers are without the seasonal holidays, such as Christmas and New Year, which tend to draw in more shoppers and increase sales. These factors combine to make the warmer period challenging for many high street shops.
To ensure summer remains a bustling time for business, retailers must actively change the way they operate and design their shop spaces, ensuring that the comforts and considerations of winter are scrutinised. To show you how, we’re sharing five ways shops can encourage sales during summer.
Open A Shop Space
Having a closed shop space, one that feels dark or stuffy, simply won’t work during the summer months. Even if shoppers are encouraged to browse, knowing that the weather is so pleasant outdoors will soon have them leaving.
As such, retailers should make an effort to open their shop space up. Propping doors open, as well as windows, while also inviting natural light and a cool breeze into a space can be very inviting, especially if shoppers did want to enjoy a brief respite from the sunshine. Such an open environment is also likely to draw in customers who see less of a divide between being outdoors and indoors.
Advertise Further Afield
During the summer, there will be a greater amount of footfall outdoors. By placing adverts, from A-boards to posters, further away from the interior of a shop space, retailers are likely to reach customers that wouldn’t otherwise be drawn into the centre of the high street. By advertising offers and summer deals, retailers will be able to catch the attention of those enjoying the sun and potentially appeal to their interest.
Freedom To Move
Unlike during winter, when browsing a shop space can be a pleasant experience in a warm room, shopping indoors during the summer can be more easily agitating. Customers will generally be hotter and more sensitive to the proximity of other shoppers, as well as the enclosure of spaces.
To avoid this, shop layouts should be roomier. By alleviating the shop floor of furniture and shelving, placing products on vertical displays, such as slatwall panels, instead, spaces become much more pleasant to navigate, feeling spacious.
Summer Deals
Whether you are able to offer summer-specific products, which are always certain to draw in customers, or willing to offer discounts on various products during the hotter season, you are certain to draw in a greater number of customers.
It is also worth considering what other competitors on the high street are doing in such a scenario as adapting your offers to match or beat theirs can be extremely advantageous.
Bright Displays
From window displays to shop aesthetics, seasonality should be a significant consideration when designing them, as should the regularity with which they are changed. During the summer, having a bright and colourful window display can be just the eye-catching asset needed for customers to venture into a shop space. Beach-themed displays and aesthetics, for example, can help customers to associate their ideal summer with a retailer’s offers.
