What is Floor Planning ?
A Floor Plan sometimes described as a store layout or store plan is a visual blueprint of where everything is positioned, for example in a retail store or warehouse it will show where all the gondolas/categories are positioned and how much space they take up, this is vital when preparing a new store layout or revamping an existing one to ensure you maximise your retail space.
A key benefit of floor planning which may also be called "macro planning" is that it allows you to determine how much shelf space each of your product groups should get and how the space should be divided up according to the overall sales contribution and importance.
What is the purpose of floor planning ?
Depending on your role you may have different objectives in the floor planning process;
Architects; creating auto-cads or blueprints marking out position of the walls, fixtures and equipment etc. vital for builders or contractors to carry out the work
Format/Operation managers; ensuring fixtures, branding etc. is consistent with other stores and commercials make sense
Merchandising managers; ensuring the necessary fixtures and promotional displays are pre-ordered and allocated correctly
Category managers; ensuring category space, position and flow reflect their knowledge of consumers, the market and category performance
Shelfstock Macro floor planning Service
At Shelfstock we understand that not all businesses have the time or budget to undertake a macro planning project or you may not want to invest in floor planning software, if that's the case we can provide the following support which includes;
Store layout observations – understanding the flow of the store, the category layout and adjacencies - will require one or more visits to your store
Shopper observations – understanding who your local shoppers are? - by spending some time in your store and talking to your staff we analyze who your typical shoppers are
Market analysis – Understanding the shopper types and missions from any available market research or client owned shopper insights*
Epos & Category assessment - analyzing existing range by category, sub category etc.* – where is the profit and footfall is coming from? which are your best/worst categories?
Existing Store layout analysis – Understanding your existing store layout – how shopper friendly is your existing store layout & what needs attention
Category & range recommendations – To recommend the optimum category grouping and range using our floor planning tool and knowledge of the macro floor planning process
New Store Layout - To recommend a new store layout based on available shopper research & category analysis to maximize future performance and shopper satisfaction – making it future proof
Retail Floor Planner - Easy to use floor planning software
Retail Floor Planner provides the missing link between architects, format managers and category managers, bringing technical constraints, operational objectives, chain image, overall commercial strategy and category-level strategies together in a single place. Allowing you to proactively manage all of these in the ultimate come-together of Category Management and operations.
Key benefits of using floor planning software
Can your customers find the products they’re looking for?
Creating store plans is now made easy with Retail Floor Planner
- Visualise how your store will look before any physical changes
- Quickly build your store plan from included fixtures
- Easily communicate store layouts, output to powerpoint or pdf
Are you giving the correct space to each category?
Use the import feature to load store or planogram sales or Epos data
- Produce a set of customised reports e.g. share of space by category, share of space by supplier etc.
- Output to excel for full customisation of reports and pivot charts using built in templates
- Import from Excel using the provided templates
Do you know where the best positions in store are?
By using the built in highlight feature you can highlight
- Hot & Cold Spots in the store/floor plan
- Top & Bottom category/fixture performance
- Quadrant analysis i.e. sales volume over profit
- Under/over spaced based on required targets
- Or set your own characteristics
Are your customers getting the service levels they expect?
With Retail Floor Planner's analysis feature you can perform evaluations on various metrics
- GPROII (gross margin on inventory investment)
- Days of Supply and rate of stock turns
- Lost profit and lost sales
- Target inventory model and projected sales on inventory
The cost?
Retail Floor Planner has no high upfront costs just a low annual cost. Typical example €1,500 for Express, €2,500 for Enterprise edition
Like a free demo?
If you would like a demonstration of the software we can arrange a time to come to your office and demonstrate all the features without any obligations to purchase
*Market analysis or Epos analysis carried out in macro floor planning process will depend on what data is publicly available or shared from clients own resources