The flow of Fashion Shop (Primark, Preston)

One of the busiest retail shops I frequently visit is Primark, specifically the branch on Preston highstreet. I will now look into how efficiant the shops stock layout is for customers to navigate round, and if the interactive touch points in the shop are placed conviniantly.

I have drawn a rough not to scale floor plan of the stores ground floor layout, and after studying where people walk most often I have drawn on the plan where has the most foot traffic; the stronger the colour, the more condensed the foot traffic is. Now it is easier to see what is good and what needs to be improved in the layout.

The most obvious issue with this branch of Primark is that there are two entrances/exits that are connected from the highstreet and an indoor shopping centre. This straight away causes foot traffic through the shop to get from the highstreet to the shopping centre or vice versa, unfortunally this is unavoidable.

However, I feel that the layout of the shop does not try to combat this problem but adds to it. I noticed that stock areas 10, 6 and 7 (labelled on the illustration) are most often where sale items are displayed, as well as areas 2, 3 and 4 have small and cheap items displayed together to catch the customers eye to tempt them into making small purchaces they didn't plan on getting, because they are cheap. I understand this muct be set up to sell more products, nut it causes a lot of congestion on the main walkway between the two entrance/exits.

I feel that if the sale items were kept in area 11 or perhaps 5, with enough signage that customers will know it's there, then some of the foot traffic will be diverted to the edge of the shop where customers can look at stock, and leave more room for people are are simply passing through.

The other thought I had while observing the foot traffic in Primark was that area 1 where shoes are currently stocked, rarely has any customers around it. I've made the same observation on many visits, throughout many months so it can not be put down to coincidence. I believe this is because that area is located furthest away from the entrances, and although it is next to a touch point of the till, its the opposite side to where the queue starts, meaning there is a low partician wall between the till, and no other areas can be accessed in that corner. I also feel that the stock chosen to be displayed there (footwear) is not the type of product that customers spontaneously buy. Being on the higher price range of any shop, and having a more practical use, customers are far more likely to go into that area because they planned to buy shoes specifically, than to randomly look through the stock.

I believe that this Primark store could avoid this 'dead space' with a simple solution of changing the queue entrance or start of the queue, to the opposite end therefore being next to area 1. As the till is an important touch point for customers as they are required to go there to purchase anything, the foot traffic would have to divert to there, making customers see the products in that corner where they could have avoided before, and I think it could ease the congestion of people in areas 2 and 3, where the products are popular.