What you’ll learn to do: Explain the value of a thoughtful store layout

A retailer measures so many things: the average ticket sale for each customer that comes through, the sales per square foot of the store, the penetration of particular product brands, and more. But one thing matters more than any other—customer foot traffic. None of those other metrics matter if you can’t get a customer in the door.

In the last section, we talked about the different kinds of store layouts and the products that are best displayed in them. Now we’re going to talk about traffic flow in a store, how ignoring our four customer behaviors can make or break a sale. A happy, relaxed customer who’s engaged in the shopping experience will spend more, and a confused, disoriented customer will leave.