Modern retail is working to create a positive emotional atmosphere in stores. We've collected a few tools to help your grocery shop or supermarket create a sales-boosting atmosphere.

The buyer chooses a shopping place where he or she feels comfortable, pleasant, beautiful, convenient, joyful, fun, and also where he or she is appreciated, loved, and expected. All of these are about positive emotions. A good atmosphere will cause immediate sales growth and generally increase customers’ loyalty in the long term. The high loyalty level of customers leads to increased sales in the long term. Even a simple loyalty program, such as offering some percentage from each purchase for future shopping discounts, can positively influence customer retention.

Listed below are some practical tips that can help to create an emotional atmosphere in the store.

Properly designed sales area

In the sales area, everything matters. It requires a competent approach from what equipment is used, how it is arranged, the width of the aisles, the shelves’ height, whether there are gaps in the shelves, and whether it is convenient to view and to take the goods. A well-designed store has answers to questions about which departments we meet and how we lead the customer. This is what the buyer doesn’t see but feels. This is about the buyer’s convenience and comfort while shopping.

Categories that generate good mood and traffic are placed at the beginning of the customer journey, such as innovative products and gadgets. It can be fruits, vegetables, and flowers - they set the tone for freshness, decorate the store with bright colors, and influence positively.

An area that creates positive emotions should be placed closer to the middle of the trading floor to create a flow. The product should be easily viewed and easily accessible; there should be enough space for several people to pass at the same time. In narrowed aisles, shelves work only at an eye level. When someone is rubbing against you all the time, it is inconvenient to look at, and even more so, to take goods placed at a feet level.

Nevertheless, excessively wide aisles can impose different problems - you need to spend extra energy on moving around the sales area from one rack to another, which is also not very convenient.

Avoiding the use of high shelves gives a better view of the sales area; customers see more goods; thus, they buy more and, as a result, increases the number of items on the receipt. Long aisles with spaces between the shelves compared to not having one gives more opportunity for the increase in turnover per square meter, as the buyer would stop at the ends of the shelves, and it would potentially bring higher chances of buyers taking more goods. 

A very cool tool is to add to the hall some promotional tables or short shelves that come up to the chest level, where the upper part is used as a table with an appealing layout. It is impossible to pass by such tables. This solution can be used even in small shops. Cross-goods sell well from these places when guests leave with additional purchases.

Lighting

Professionally set up lighting can bring a significant influence on the sales floor. It gains the attention of those customers just passing by and directs them to the right place, creates the necessary emotional atmosphere and the motivation to buy, encourages to buy certain types of goods, as well as creates or destroys any price perception. For instance, in grocery stores, using different color temperatures for different categories of goods can put these groups in a favorable light - meat - red, cheese - yellow, vegetables - juicy and bright. It leads to the emergence of a strong desire to buy all these delicious products.

Which particular light to use depends on the concept and positioning of the store. Someone uses linear light and adds an accent light to increase sales of marginal product groups. Some stores use accent lighting throughout the sales area, darkening the aisles and illuminating only the shelf/showcase, using individual color temperature for each product group. Thus, complexity creates a unique atmosphere in which the goods are in the first place. When planning to open or rebrand a store, you should not save on lighting; since lighting significantly affects the store's desired perception by the buyer and, as a result, works to increase sales.

Promotions

This is a combination of creative promotional tables, price tags, various slides, ladders, baskets, and additional decorative elements. The buyer's impression of the products is first determined through their vision. Therefore beauty in the presentation of the store and goods can trigger an impulse to buy.

Design and communication

The design should be modern, displays the brand’s idea, and emphasizes the store's concept. Design works together with communication. A trendy global tool - storytelling - is also integrated into the design. With the help of design and communication, you can surprise, delight, inspire, teach, bring a smile, emotion, happiness. It's all about feelings. You always want to return to a beautiful, positively emotional store.

Aroma marketing

Smells evoke associations and act on taste buds. It smells of coffee - the feeling of urgency to buy a cup of coffee. The department with blankets smells of lavender - gives the imagination of a soft comfy sofa and inspires the purchase in anticipation of a warm, cozy evening. Now the bakery is situated near the entrance, and it lures into the store with its incredible smell of fresh-baked bakery and immediately stimulates one’s appetite. This brings one’s desire to want to buy even more.

Service

With the help of friendly service, you can easily fall in love with a customer. One crooked expression on the seller's face can destroy all the efforts made to attract customers.

A store is a holistic space. It is not enough to use only one tool for creating a positive emotional atmosphere; several tools need to be used in different combinations and not to lose sight of any limitations. It is important to remember that human brains tend to focus on the negative side. If the client does not like one thing, he or she will remember those specific details and give a general negative impression to the entire store.

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