ABSTRACT
This chapter explores retail design in terms of formal and informal communication modes that entice consumer spending. Issues explored include the role of consumers in the designed retail store, the context of stakeholders and designers creating the complete retail experience together using tacit knowledge, and the infl uence of online shopping and how this infl uences consumer choices. Shopping and the retail environment are rapidly changing as informal social activities and communication modes, marketing and advertising strategies further infl uence customer decisions and choices. People decide to shop, have a coffee, socialize and engage together in the various forms of retail experiences that they have, and both communication and social activity form the basis of many choices made in retail and retail design. We will explore these concepts in this chapter. Not only is communication a fundamental way for retailers to reach out to consumers; it also infl uences how stores are conceived and designed, how advertising and branding are marketed to potential customers and how decision-making occurs on various levels and by various stakeholders. Designers play a fundamental role in both communicating with retailers and in creating shopping environments that communicate the end goals of the retailer’s brand. Designers also take conceptual ideas and work with stakeholders to transform the retail brand into the reality of the retail environment, whether this is virtual or the real physical store design. Stakeholders and their relationship with designers will also be explored by examining how clients and designers use communicative tools such as co-creation and co-design to develop retail store concepts and make meaning of design decisions. These all form part of the tools used as an aesthetic catalyst to generate design ideas and create tangible and viable retail solutions, often with these more tacit forms of knowledge.
