Extreme Makeover – Retail Edition

If you know, you know. It’s a big deal to convert yesterday’s basic transactional store into a 21st century omni-optimized micro-fulfillment center. But in order to compete with the ultimate retailer that goes by the name of Amazon, retailers need to make big changes to stores themselves and the operations that makes them run like the commerce machines they should be.
At WD, we often have the opportunity to remake a traditional, transactional store from the ground up. This is the way you bring a store into relevance in today’s retail world. We like to call it Extreme Makeover – Retail Edition.
Whether it’s a convenience store, beauty section, pet department or a complete big box store, it’s no small task to make wholesale changes. But most stores were built way before delivery, BOPIS, and e-commerce changed everything.
Enough of the setup. Let’s dive into the main steps for an extreme makeover.
We talked extensively to employees to understand missteps in the store journey. Large products were impossible to stock. There wasn’t enough room in receiving to store product and receive at the same time. These are real world problems that need to be addressed with the new version of the store.
Knowing this, inventory needed to account for omnichannel. Retailers’ data showed which products were heavy hitters through ecommerce and which were bigger in-store purchases. So, we designed the expanded fulfillment/receiving rooms to accommodate.
After reviewing projections for redesigned stores, we determine the best location in the store for BOPIS. Our research shows consumers don’t even want to go into the store if they don’t have to, so that influences our recommendation. Employees would be trained to operate both customer service and BOPIS, but the sections would have clear wayfinding marked for customers.
For shoppers who preferred to come into the store, we created dedicated fitting rooms in the BOPIS areas of the store, so customers could quickly try on products without having to walk to another part of the store.
There are reasons why shoppers still go to physical stores. Experience is everything. They want to try before they buy, they want to be entertained, and they want it to be memorable. We created flexible shop-in-shops. We even designed areas where customers could test out products.
There you have it, friends. A transactional store to a 21st century omni-optimized micro-fulfillment center in six easy steps. It’s so easy that all the cool brands are doing it. In all seriousness, somewhat extreme steps are necessary to take on the new retail competition. We’d venture to argue that all of the changes are logical on paper. The scary part is starting the conversion of a multi-thousand-square-foot box. That’s where WD comes in. We make it less scary. We sized up this extreme makeover. We have the strategy, brand, operations, and build expertise to do the same for your brand.