Why Retail Needs Good Signage

Signage For Your Business


Retail on the high street is under more pressure than ever. If it’s not a global pandemic it’s the threat from online shopping, the lack of parking facilities or extortionate and crippling business rates. But, high street retail does have one trick up its sleeve, and it comes in the form of great signage.

How important is great signage in retail?

Signage, whether exterior signage or interior signage may be a passive form of advertising, but it has the potential to make a huge difference in sales, return visits and the lasting impression a customer creates of the shop, the business and the brand.

Why Retail Needs Good Signage

Think of some of the world’s biggest brands, the supermarkets, the clothes brands or the technology brands. If you close your eyes, it’s very likely you’ll be able to visualise many of the signs or the style of signs these highly successful businesses put on their storefronts and inside their shops.

Signs Create Real Emotions

The truth is, the major retailers know exactly how to use signs to tap into your emotions. They know the science behind the colours, images and fonts that make you feel nostalgic, happy, hungry and even amorous, and they use them to great advantage.

It’s about the experience

Signage in retail creates an experience, from the shopfront right up to the checkout, whether it’s for a promotion, branding, information or navigation – get it right and you will see more customers and more sales, get it wrong and it really could be disastrous.

It starts at the shopfront

The consumer experience usually starts at the shopfront. Potential customers walk by, they look up and in very little time they begin making their mind up about your business. This means that the sign you choose needs to have instant appeal, to send out the emotion you want to convey in as little time as possible.

Does the signage have to be bold?

That’s entirely up to you. Is your brand loud and trendy, or has it got a more subtle tone to it? What sort of customer are you aiming at – young, middle-aged, professional? Do you want to come across ultra-friendly or kind but authoritative? Whatever message you want to get across, your shopfront signage is your first and most important attempt.

Branding

Your brand is your personality, it’s the way your business would speak if it was a person. With this in mind, it’s important to use that ‘personality’ on your exterior and interior signage. Use your brands colours and font and write your ‘Thanks for shopping’ or ‘Welcome to our shop’ signage using the unique words and phrases your business would use when talking to its ideal customers.

Directional signage

Signage that let’s customers know how to get around your shop or to find the items they’re looking for, are a vital part in creating the right experience. If a customer can’t find the tills, changing rooms or the exits and entrances of a shop due to a lack of clear signage, their experience is marred and the choice to purchase something or make a return visit is put into question.

Conclusion

If the high street retail sector is to thrive, imaginative, vibrant and clear signage is an essential ingredient. Countless studies have shown that the right signs strategically positioned, have a direct influence on getting customers in and driving up sales.

Contact us

If you’d like professional advice on the how to create the right type of signage for your retail business, contact Future Signs today to speak to our team of experts.