How to Make a Retail Shelving Floor Plan

One of the first tasks any shop owner faces when fitting out a store is the basic floor plan for retail shelving. You'll have plenty of decisions to make, from the type of shop shelving you need to where to place your counter. Here are the basic steps you'll need to take to make a retail shelving floor plan, but remember that the team at Shelving4Shops are always happy to provide advice to help you to put together the perfect store plan - just pop into our Leicestershire shelving showroom to speak to one of our retail experts!

Here are our 9 easy steps to creating a retail shelving floor plan:

1) Measure out your floor space accurately and draw an outline (squared paper or graph paper can be helpful to draw to scale);

2) Mark out the position of doors, windows, columns, and electrical sockets;

3) Think about the position/size of your shop counter - usually, the best position is near the front of the store but you will want to ensure that you have good visibility of as much of your shop as possible;

4) Determine how many wall shelving units you'll need (you can find examples of sizes and widths here) and whether you'll need to add corner units, pegboard shelving, or magazine racking according to your merchandise;

5) If your store is big enough to have aisles, consider where to position gondola shelving and how you'd like your customers to move around your store - gondola shelving is a versatile double-sided freestanding type of shop shelving and creates a 'flow' for your shop traffic;

6) End bays or promotional bays provide a neat way to end a gondola run and provide impact for promotional items - if you have space to add these to gondola units then you can really boost impulse sales;

7) Now think about the different type of products you're going to sell and whether you'll need to adjust or add shelving accessories to your wall and gondola shelving, such as shelf risers, shelf dividers, extra shelves, pegboard backing, magazine racking or different depth base shelves;

8) Any unused or awkward spaces? Fill them with dump bins and stacking wire baskets - make the most of every inch of your store!

9) Finally, add a shop counter, and promotional material like Epos ticket strips to finish your store with a professional look.

Visit our website to find out more about any of the items above and to browse our huge range of new shop shelving and accessories, including:

• ·     Gondola shelving - A popular choice in many stores due to its versatility and functionality, gondola shelving is a staple shelving option for stores of any size. You can use this shelving to create aisles within your store and the range of heights and widths we stock mean that we have the shelving size for you.
  ·     Wall shelving - Use wall shelving around the edge of your store to provide plenty of shelving space while optimising the floor space you have available.
  ·     Shopping baskets - By having stacks of baskets at the front of the store and dotted around the aisles you will encourage customers to purchase more items as it is easier to carry them in a basket than with their hands.
  ·     Wire stacking baskets - These are an excellent way to display sale and impulse purchase items in your store. As these are freestanding they can be used to fill empty spaces and can be easily moved to create new interesting displays.
  ·     Corner shelving - Utilise every inch of floor space you have in your store by using specialist corner shelving to bring life back into an overlooked corner.
  ·     Peg board shelving and pegs - Not all products sit well on classic flat shelving, our range of pegboard shelving allows you to hang products to ensure they are displayed in the best way possible. All of our bays can be slotted together to ensure a seamless shelving display.

You can find all these retail shelving items along with experienced and friendly advice on planning your store at Shelving4Shops - visit us online, call on 01455 221512 or email sales@shelving4shops.co.uk for more information.