AS MANY SHOPPERS have been transitioning to online shopping over the past few years, there have been arguments about how brick-and-mortar shopping will soon cease to exist. However, brick-and-mortar shopping is definitely staying, especially for apparel retail stores, where personal service and fitting rooms provide a shopping experience that is not available online. Most shoppers still have similar preferences of being able to personally see, touch, feel, and try on a product before making a purchasing decision online or in-store.
Many retailers often overlook the importance of the fitting room experience of shoppers, and do not realize that the fitting room does actually impact retail performance. Fitting rooms are known as the small-but-mighty area of any retail store as they are one of the key elements that lead to the increase of sales and decrease in returns. This is due to the fact that most purchasing decisions are made when shoppers like what they see in the fitting room.
Fitting rooms are an important part of a brand’s store design. The key elements to a brilliant fitting room design are the lighting, mirror, size and color.
It is best to use neutral white lighting, and have multiple lights on the ceiling, or lighting panels down on each side of the mirror. This will not only reflect a real life flattering impression on the customer, but also improve the fitting room experience as the perfect level and quality of lighting will avoid casting awkward and ugly shadows on the customer.
For fitting room mirrors, retailers should never have doubts to invest in large and high-quality mirrors made from high-grade glass and materials. While it may be costlier, high-quality mirrors will provide a more natural and realistic reflection, compared to cheap mirrors that have a misrepresenting and unnatural reflection.
As for the size and color, it is best not to have a small fitting room that makes customers feel confined and unable to have a full view of what they are wearing. Additionally, the colors of a fitting room should not clash with the lighting. It is also safer to use more neutral colors to make a fitting room look even more attractive.
Different types of fitting room designs can give different effects and results on shoppers who are trying on clothes. A fitting room design with harsh lighting, bad quality mirrors, or an odd color, may result in making customers look unflattering. Hence, preventing them from making a purchasing decision as they do not like what they see in the fitting room.
On the other hand, some fitting room designs that unintentionally mislead customers to look better that they would in the natural daylight may come across as ‘too perfect’. Although this kind of fitting rooms may manipulate shoppers to purchase the product, however, shoppers may feel deceived by the retailer, and will not be a returning or loyal shopper to that retailer anymore.
Therefore, retailers should ensure that their fitting room designs stands between these two extremes, in order to gain a successful transaction whenever a customer walks out of the fitting room.
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