How to Simplify Your Store Remodel And Reimage Process - GSP

Store remodels are more popular than ever. According to a CSP Outlook Survey, 72% of retailers are interested in remodeling and refreshing their stores this year. But let’s face it: There’s a lot at stake when it comes to managing a store remodel or category reimaging. Not only do you need to watch all of the moving parts and pieces, you also need to stay on time and stick to the budget while ensuring quality of work.

To make the process go as smoothly as possible, you’ll want to enact the following:

• A thorough store survey to ensure specs are correct.
• Early buy-in from key decision makers (you don’t want someone to put on the breaks midway through, when you’ve already incurred material and labor costs).
• A project manager who will monitor all aspects of the job. And, yes it should be someone other than you, unless you’re going to hire someone else to do your day job. A skilled retail project manager is involved continually to provide creative solutions for any issues that comes up.
• Renderings and 3D flythroughs of the remodel. This will help you to visualize the completed work before it happens. You’ll have the capacity to understand, in detail, how all of the new elements will fit in the space, and you’ll be able to make adjustments before items are in the engineer phase. It’s also great for explaining the project to higher-ups.
• The right tools to track progress and budget. Learn how technology can shave up to 10 days off a project rollout.
• A proven retail store remodel team. Having the right partner is key. In the long run, they can actually help you cut costs and reduce overhead because they know what to expect at each step and will keep things moving along. See our seven tips to cut costs here.
• A store-specific installation guide can cut install time significantly. It acts as a detailed instruction manual with photos to ensure exact placement. One retailer we know used to plan for a full week to complete a store install with a four-person crew. Plus they flew in several category managers from the corporate office to make sure everything was set up correctly. After they began using a store-specific install guide, they were able to go to a three-person crew and it took three days total. The best part was that Corporate was so impressed by the guide’s effectiveness that they felt like they didn’t need to send anyone to “babysit” anymore (saving them travel expenses and time away from their work).

GSP is your store remodeling and reimaging expert with 40 years of retail experience.