Amy grant picture

Counter intelligence: a picture speaks a thousand words. Does your sales counter? Is it being used to its fullest potential?

Sandy Bradbury's store in Columbus, Ind., has become a brilliant example of retail design innovation. Literally. It glows dazzling white until automatic timers shut off the lights at 1 am.

Stacked glass blocks form the base of two sales counters, which create the store's hypnotizing interior. The light shines through the blocks, assisted by a white reflective Plexiglas-like material. It's so bright, in fact, that the entire store is lit up and passersby can't help but look inside.

"We wanted to accomplish a striking attraction," says Bradbury, co-owner of the Waterin-hole. "That glow, in addition to the signage of the building, draws your eye."

Bradbury's customers are attracted to the store like moths to light. Her creativity represents a unique way to tap into the counter's full potential for sales.

The sales counter is, without a doubt, the most important element of a retail store. No other fixture in the store gets as much customer interaction. That is why a counter's location, appearance and the products displayed around it are critical to an effective store design and profit boosting.

First impressions

A common practice for many retailers is to place their sales counters near the store's front door. This is done to make it easy to greet customers who walk in, as well as deter shoplifters. Both are good reasons. However, not a[[ pool and spa retailers are as innovative as Bradbury when it comes to counter design. For them, there may be benefits to bucking the old trend.

The products in our industry are usually large and therefore less likely to be stolen. Besides, if someone is determined to steal from you, they will find a way to do it.

And while having a greeter at the door isn't a bad idea, it may be better to let the products sell themselves. They usually make a quicker impression on the customer and encourage more enthusiasm about buying the product.

"If you have big items such as hot tubs, you want people to walk in and have those--boom!--right in their face," says Jeff Grant, author of The Budget Guide to Retail Store Planning and Design and owner of Triodisplay & Fixture in San Diego.

"If the first thing they see is the counter, they're not getting that impact [of the product]."

Instead, incoming customers may have to fight their way through a line of people waiting to check out, which is not necessarily an inviting prospect. Pushing the counter farther back in the store also is more in synch with shoppers' comfort zones, say many retail store designers.

"If I came in and you're already having people lined up at a desk checking out, you're just barely getting my mind into buying a product, and you're already throwing out the message, 'Here's where you check out,'" says Brian Dyches, principal of Atmospheric Group in Laguna Nigel, Calif. "That's the last thing 1 should be drinking about. The way your store flows has to be in harmony with the way you want to present your product's story."

Shoppers tend to drift toward the right after they enter a store and then browse counterclockwise, according to retail experts. They say that sales increase when the checkout counter is placed toward the rear and left of the store center. That way, customers make their way through lots of merchandise before exiting.

Amy Barto has moved her sales counter numerous times. The first time, it was put right inside the door, which was "a bad traffic pattern," says Barto, owner of Barto Pool & Spa in Phoenixville, Pa. The next time, it was placed to the left of the door, slightly farther hack, which "wasn't bad."

However, with her latest renovation, the sales counter moved again--farther back and toward the center. The customers loved it. They also loved the sales counter's new look. Barto pitched the unattractive, brown, 3-foot-high, rectangular sales counter and replaced it with one much more pleasing to the eye.

"The counter design now is a big 'U' shape, and it's bright and colorful," she says. "It has posts on all sides so we can have banners going around. It's made so that the shelves underneath (the ones visible to customers) are recessed and lighted, for the impulse items we put around the counter.

"I'm pretty neurotic about the display," Barto adds. "Everything has to be symmetrical and identical on both sides, not haphazard and cluttered."

Above and beyond

As Barto suggests, what's displayed around the counter should be carefully planned. She chose to make her counter have a fun, carnival-like atmosphere.

Other retailers should consider the type of branding appropriate to their stores. For instance, rather than distracting customers with everything you sell at once, pick one main message--say, emphasizing the store's name and logo--and then add secondary messages, such as the vendors' marketing banners. Retail experts suggest that everything be kept simple to make it easier for the customer to absorb.

"It's not any different than what a Target or Sears would do," says Kent Wells, director of retail planning and design at RGLA Inc./Robert G. Lyon & Associates Inc. in Chicago. "They all need to play up the idea of the [product] they carry without overpowering the fact that they're a retailer bringing all these brands to you."

For instance, behind Bradbury's counter is an 8-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide backlit sign. In the summer, it's a colorful picture of a family having fun in a pool. Bradbury's store name, the Waterin-hole, and its logo are featured in the corner of the lifestyle graphic. In the winter, the sign is switched to an older couple enjoying a hot tub.

It helps reinforce your own choice of image, as well as your name. "Think about how many times you go into a place, and while you're writing a check, you have to ask the people, 'Who am I making this check out to?'" Grant says. "You already can't remember the name of the store. That's why you should reinforce [your name] by putting it up behind the counter."

Another simple way to make your sales counter attractive is to add what Grant calls "an eyebrow." This is anything that frames the sales counter, making it seem less open than the rest of the store. If it's in a confined space, it makes the transaction feel more personal and the person doing the buying more protected, agrees Dyches. The framing can be done with recessed lighting, a wooden structure or some kind of canopy.

The sales counter also should be lit properly. "You want to have halogen pendulums or track lighting shining onto the counter surface so that the product appears to sparkle," Dyches says. "The better lit it is, the more you're going to leave the customer with a good impression about the product they bought, whether it was a filter or a nice thermometer."

Dollars and sense

Last, but not least, retailers should consider which kinds of impulse-buy products to display. Pool and spa retailers vary considerably in their choices and on how much they want to display. But the No. 1 role everyone agrees on is this: Don't clutter the counter so much that it gets in the way of the sales transactions.

"We're not a mass retailer, where people are buying magazines and bubble gum as they check out," Dyches says. "We're trying to keep the customer on a fairly high-end solution."

Many pool and spa retailers offer gift items such as watches, bracelets and key chains. To Barto, though, those types of products don't fit in with her store's message.

"Everything must be fun--no test strips or chemicals," she says. "I try to keep water as the theme. I sell things like the Derby Ducks and floating candles and floating cup holders. We don't put anything that isn't fun that they just might not grab."

Many stores successfully display items near their sales counters that are unrelated to their main products. Bradbury finds that items such as water shoes and barbecue spices sell particularly well near the counter. "One item that got a lot of [positive feedback] is the Bad Byron's Butt Rub lone of the barbecue spices]," she notes. "Everyone gets a kick out of the name, and it always causes comments."