Coin Laundry Association President and CEO Brian Wallace welcomed 425 attendees to the organization’s first educational seminar of Clean 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Dubbed “Great by Design: What Laundromats Can Learn from the Latest Retail Trends,” this session was presented by leading retail design expert Brian Dyches.
During his presentation, Dyches shared why creating a dynamic interior design and brand experience within a laundry is good for the bottom line, sharing key retail and hospitality design trends with the packed meeting room.
“It’s not the strongest and smartest who will survive, but those who can adapt to change,” said Dyches, CEO of Digital Experience Lab Group/Atmospheric. “Change is our friend. In retail, we’ve gone from not having an experience to being all about the experience and your store’s brand. It may be someone else’s third-party brand washer and dryer in there, but, folks, it’s your brand and your reputation.”
Dyches pointed out that Clean 2017’s host city offers great examples of what should be done.
“In just six years, Las Vegas has changed radically,” he noted. “This town knows how to get money out of your pockets. And you’re all looking to do the same. We’ve all got to squeeze more juice out of that orange… and Vegas is good at it.”
He suggested laundry owners attending the show take some time to “walk the retail and open your eyes, see what’s working and what isn’t.”
Dyches — who has served as the international president and chairman of the Retail Design Institute, a global nonprofit professional association representing the retail experience and design community — pointed to recent reports predicting that 25 percent of U.S. malls will shutter within a few years.
“But the A malls are increasing their rent,” he added. “It’s the B and C malls that are dying, because they forgot to change and ignored the customer experience.”
Although he accompanied his presentation with a slideshow of some of the latest and greatest retail design examples from around the world, he promised the audience that he wasn’t trying to bust anyone’s budget. “For every expensive application, there is a ‘Home Depot chic’ application,” he said. “It’s not outside your ability to do this, and some of you are.”
Among the many store design tidbits and tricks of the trade he shared were:
- Light impacts heart rate and mood. Even lighting is a failure; there should be differentiation and flow.
- An entry door more than six feet wide will bring in twice the number of people.
- Humans prefer curved shapes. We gravitate to elements like circular soffits. Anything circular is currently very hot in the retail design marketplace.
- Simple, inexpensive design materials, such as corrugated metal or blackboard paint, can make a huge difference in the customer experience.
- For impactful wall murals and powerful graphics, visit SEGD.org to find local graphic artists. Local colleges also can be helpful in finding inexpensive graphic design and artwork sources.
- A successful experience is about slowing customers down and letting them experience your brand and store.
- 80 percent of people move through a retail store counter-clockwise, so remove any speed bumps in your laundry’s flow.
- Adjusting your LED lighting can be a powerful mechanism for leveraging the colors in your store.
- Localization (photos, etc.) lets customers better identify with your store’s area and community, and people like to feel as if they belong to an area.
As he wrapped up his information-packed, 75-minute presentation, Dyches urged today’s laundry owners to continue their research into retail design, suggesting the following resources: the Retail Design Institute, the Color Marketing Group and VMSD magazine (for which he writes a semi-monthly column on architecture and technology).
“The average coin laundry customer is in your store for about an hour and a half,” Dyches marveled. “Very few industries can keep their customers in their businesses for 90 minutes. You need to squeeze that juice out of the orange.”
Download the Presentation
Whether you were at The Clean Show presentation or at home, you can have access to Brian Dyches’ slideshow with lots of photos for inspiration for great retail space design by downloading our Digital Handbook after clicking the button below.
