Designing a retail store selling natural products has elements that are similar to any other store, but the green sensibilities of many of the customers have to be acknowledged. Store design can be broken down in to four basic elements: construction, traffic planning, fixturing and merchandising.
Construction
Every store has a need for some form of construction. This may include new walls for storage areas, HVAC, plumbing, paint, power and lighting. Three areas that can easily be made more eco-friendly and natural are the floors, the paint and the lighting.
Most carpet companies now provide some form of eco-friendly material that far exceeds what has been available in the past. Even wood and vinyl floors have "green" counterparts. Many retailers are opting for natural concrete floor, as it is long lasting and easy to clean, and even colors are now available as stains. Concrete is a great alternative to traditional tiles, woods and carpets at a very reasonable price.
Painting used to be an odorous experience. New water-based latex paints helped, but now companies such as Sherwin-Williams Paint offer environmentally friendly paint in all the colors, finishes and quality levels of standard paint without the negative impact other paints provide.
Lighting is crucial in every retail environment; improved lighting layouts can increase same store sales by more than 20 percent. The challenge is getting the right light at the right place without using too much power and without spending a fortune. Typically, stores install two types of lights, ambient for general lighting and display lights to capture the customer’s attention. Most stores try to use compact fluorescent lamps set in recessed canisters for ambient lights. They offer low wattage and decent output; the only drawback is price. Most stores are provided by the landlord with a vanilla shell. The shell has a dropped ceiling with 2-foot by 4-foot tiles and uses standard fluorescent 2-foot by 4-foot drop in lights. If a retailer wants to change to the CFL's, it requires removing the existing lamps, replacing the hole with a ceiling tile and adding the recessed CFL's. This is not an inexpensive proposition.
Ambient lighting should always be supplemented with directional display lights. Typically, these are track lights. Easy to install and move around, track lights add punctuation to every display. The bulb drives the color and the energy usage. Best are LED bulbs. They have low power usage, last forever, adequate output and high-color rendition light. Again, the only downside is cost. A single fixture can run more than $200. The next best may be the low-voltage lamps commonly referred to as MR16 halogen lamps. These only require 12 volts to run and provide a very white light. The problem with these lamps is the filaments in the bulbs tend to blow easily. For many, the best combination of price and output are PAR 20-30, 50W-7W bulbs in a standard track fixture. These lamps provide the output of a much larger incandescent lamp, offer a whiter light and a long life at a very moderate price.