I meet people of all ages who complain how expensive it is to start their own retail business. And, unfortunately, I usually agree with them. But if you’re willing to share the overhead –and the floor space – with others in your position, you just might get your big break.

That’s what the young retailers in the collective store known as the Dressing Room are doing in New York. A dozen clothing designers are splitting the rent and displaying their wares in a space none could afford alone. This trend is just catching on in the U.S., but it’s already a huge hit in countries like Belgium and Japan.

At the Dressing Room, everyone shares in some common duties like working on the sales floor a certain number of days. But that also gives them access to a studio in the basement, where they can work on their designs.

We’ve all seen this concept carried out to the max in “antique malls” where sellers rent spaces and work on commission. But the Dressing Room and its competitors sound like the kind of place for those who want hands-on experience in the retail world. If you’re in that category, start networking and maybe you can get in on the ground floor. It could lead to a sales floor of your own sooner than you expected.

Ah, yes, another blog about Apple. You must know by now that I’ve been a Macintosh user since they were introduced in 1984. Back then I was more interested in the technology than their retail side, which was nonexistent. Now I carefully watch what goes on in each Apple Store I visit because, like their computers, Apple is setting the pace for consumer retail.

The company’s 201 stores were recently redesigned again. This is the third or fourth redesign I can recall, and each one improves on the rest. Now the checkout registers are completely gone from customers’ sight; staff carries wireless scanners/registers that complete the sale on the sales floor and either email the receipt or beams it to well-hidden printers.

All of the Macs, iMacs, iPods, iPhones and other product are on tables that invite immediate exploring by grown-ups and kids alike. Each computer is connected to the Internet, and each music player is preloaded with content. It’s a gadget lover’s nirvana.

Ultimately, though, the stores wouldn’t work without the so-called “concierges” who attach themselves to customers. I’ve found almost all of them to be knowledgeable about every product in the store. If they can’t answer a question, they’ll find someone who can. They are eager (sometimes too eager) and polite, unlike many of the sales staff at big-box consumer electronics stores. Obviously, some excellent training is going on.

It’s paying off for Apple, because more than 100 million visitors came in during its fiscal year that ended in September. They contributed $4.2 billion in revenue, up about 24 percent from $3.4 billion the last fiscal year.

Maybe Apple’s concierges and wireless scanners aren’t your retail style, but you sure can learn from them. Can your salespeople answer all of your customers’ questions? Do they treat your customers courteously, without the condescending tone I’ve seen too far often in retail? Are they willing to go the extra mile for your customers – and for you?

Think about it. You don’t need to look like an Apple store. But you can embrace the way they treat customers as a core value.

So we signed on the dotted line and started designing and building our new office and showroom. We perform this type of work for our clients on a daily basis, so the process was not difficult from a technical standpoint. The hard part was figuring out how to allocate the new space. We needed room for sales, administration, design, web development services, warehousing and lectures. We had some competing interests and if I had allocated the space everyone wanted we would have had to double the size of the facility!

Instead we just started blocking out the available space; laying in desks, chairs, fixtures and displays and working with each department to try to figure out what they really needed in terms of space and equipment. Further we had to take in to account the needs of our customers- traffic flow through the showroom, access to bathrooms, ease of parking, etc. Every aspect of both the customer and the employee experience had to be taken in to account.

The overlay on all of this was of course budget. The landlord provided a reasonable build out allowance and we had fixtures and displays to add on top of that. Of course every single budgeted item came in a little higher than expected, but we value engineered as necessary and kept our targeted budget in sight - right up until the handicap accessibility rules cropped up! We had a little disagreement with the landlord regarding who was responsible for making the property ADA (American Disability Act) compliant. In most cities the ADA rules crop up when the tenant or the property owner gets a permit to improve the property or someone sues for noncompliance. It’s at that point the city tells the tenant or the owner to make the property ADA compliant. In our case, San Diego provides an exemption that limits the investment in compliance to 20% of the overall improvement budget (In our case $60,000.). At the new showroom, most of the compliance work was on the outside of the build and included grading, parking and sidewalk - all to the tune of $30,000. As the costs increased so did my blood pressure. Since we were getting pressured by our existing Landlord to get moved we eventually claimed the 20% exemption and moved forward with some interior work and 100 feet of new sidewalks. I will attempt to work things out with the landlord once the project is complete.

We did have a few other issues, which included leaking air conditioners that pumped hot instead of cold air, leaking windows, colors that looked better on the color chip then on the walls, flooring materials that were sent short, contractors who showed up late, early or not at all, and of course, the usual issues that all builders deal with and that I simply refer to as “The Zen of Store Building.”

Now on January 21, 2008, one week after we had scheduled our move, we will in fact move! I suspect the computers will glitch as will the phones and we will suffer through some growing pains as well. The showroom is next so, if the stars align, by around March 1st the showroom and retail learning center will open. That means substantially more customers visiting the facility, but that also means additional trained personnel and upgraded dress codes (there go the flip flops, t-shirts and backwards ball caps!).

The real benefit is that our new facility will let us interface more effectively with our customers while allowing them to touch and feel a myriad of fixtures, materials, samples and more. As we move forward we’ll keep you informed of our progress and the dates for the grand opening.

Visit our Showroom page here.

…will you be as prepared as Best Buy? The consumer electronics retailer is rehearsing its staff to cope with the expected onslaught of shoppers. Great idea, and one that surely grabs media attention.

Smaller retails can only pray that they’ll have long lines and extra cashiers on hand for the three-day shopping surge after Thanksgiving. If you’ve done all the right merchandising and marketing, you’ll get your fair share of the in-store shoppers. Either way, have you taken the time work with your staff on how to handle holiday crowds?

Whatever your T-Day and beyond situation, take the time to work with your staff to discuss ways to accommodate holiday shoppers. Do some role-playing and set up some horror scenarios. A few minor changes like posts and ropes in front of the registers, better directional signs and clearer price tags can save everyone a lot of grief.
You’ll be surprised at how far a little preparation will go. Your employees will thank you for it–not to mention your customers.

Best of luck to you this Friday and the entire holiday shopping season. If you have any ideas to help make your fellow retailers jolly, I’d be glad to share them here.

Maybe last Wednesday was a slow news day in Orlando, Florida. Could that be why the grand opening of a new IKEA store dominated the headlines of OrlandoSentinel.com? Or was it newsworthy that IKEA’s combination of merchandise and design attract assemble-it-yourself furniture groupies? I think it was the latter.

I’ve always thought the Swedish home-furniture retailer did a fantastic job of drawing shoppers in and keeping them moving through the huge stores. I didn’t know there were so many IKEA fanatics, like the ones in the article who camped out for the grand opening.

“Adventure shopping” is what a marketing-strategy expert calls IKEA’s successful formula. What a great description. We hear all the time about “destination shopping,” but IKEA’s takes it a few steps further. You can drop your kids off in day care, stroll through the store to see what’s new, enjoy a delicious meal in the café, pick up your kids, and drive away satisfied.

I visit the IKEA in San Diego a few times a year and am glad to see that there’s always a decent merchandise churn. The old standbys like freezer-bag clips are still there, but so are the latest TV stands. Yet I get vacuumed in like everyone else and usually walk the entire showroom floor—on both floors. (There are some well-disguised shortcuts that let you get out faster, but I’ll let you find them yourself.)

Shopping should be an adventure. You can make your retail store more adventurous just by changing the aisle configurations every once in a while. Try a new paint color on the walls. Replace carpet in high-traffic areas. Hang signage from the ceiling to eye level. None of this is on the scale of an IKEA, but it just might keep your store on your customers’ “adventure list.”

I wrote a while back about the British food giant Tesco, whose Fresh & Easy markets are just getting started on this side of the globe. Looks like they’re doing pretty well, according to this article in the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper sent some notable chefs, foodies and staff writers to check out the small supermarkets. They also talked to customers.

Interesting that while they praised the food selection, they also had a lot to say about the stores’ interior layout and design. They liked the “interior design, because of wide aisles, clearly written signs, bright lighting and an uncluttered feel.” A shopper said, “I like the nice atmosphere. It doesn’t overwhelm you like other stores.”

I’ve visited Tesco stores in the United Kingdom and found them to be likewise well laid out, even for Yanks who don’t recognize all of the food choices. The stores are designed to keep you moving, ever on the lookout for the surprises ahead on the next aisle. That could apply to your store, too, even if it’s not at all food-related.

Keep your customers moving by creating logical places to stop, like sales tables or new-merchandise shelves, all tied together with appropriate signage. Add a little element of surprise to their shopping experience. From the British Isles to your store’s aisles, it’s a simple technique that will have your customers coming back for more.

I never knew that retail art galleries barely existed in this country until the mid 1920s. Or that the reason they have flourished since then is because of an Eastern European immigrant named Edith Halpert, who started her career at the original (and still standing) Macy’s in New York City.

I just learned this at a talk by Lindsay Pollock, the author of a new book on Halpert, “The Girl with the Gallery: Edith Gregor Halpert and the Making of the Modern Art Market” (PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2007, $16.95).

Halpert’s talent as an artist developed early. She went to work as an illustrator in Macy’s advertising department while in her teens. It was there, Pollock says, that Halpert picked up the principles of retail merchandising, store layout and design, and customer service.

After marrying an artist, the pair lived for a time in Europe, where retail art galleries were already established but had more of a museum atmosphere. She realized there was a market for galleries in New York after meeting and cultivating the artists she met in Europe. She took a gamble and opened her Downtown Gallery in New York, a tasteful but homey place where visitors were made to feel comfortable around the art and artists.

The gallery flourished for 44 years. Halpert invented the market for American folk art, and championed the growth of the American modern art movement. She cut legendary deals with artists and educated her patrons.

She became an icon in the art world. And she did it by doing what I constantly harp on in this blog: If you want to be a successful retailer, study what the really successful retailers are doing. Then adapt their practices to your store’s style. Halpert had the good sense to absorb it all as a teen at Macy’s. All you have to do is take a walk through your regional mall. I’ll bet it even has a Macy’s.

You probably don’t have shopping carts in your store. Even so, you use the trusty indoor vehicles when you go to the supermarket. So you know that the cart’s track record as a marketing vehicle is less than stellar.

That may change soon, according to this article on Forbes.com. The space between your hands on the cart handle could be the most valuable in-store marketing real estate yet. The Home Depot is using that space to send text messages about products and prices to a screen literally at shoppers’ fingertips.

The article points out that more than 70% of purchase decisions are made in-store. But only 6% of advertising budgets is devoted to in-store marketing. Makes you want to think about reallocating your in-store marketing budget, doesn’t it?

Have you installed any video screens with customized messaging to attract customers? It’s a growing trend, but not the most effective way to reach customers, Forbes says: “Mass merchandise and supermarket consumers go shopping to shop, not to stop and be entertained. They are conditioned to move through stores, not to stop, look and listen.”

Your store is likely much smaller than those the article discusses. But the story contains some good lessons: In-store marketing seems to work better than anything for getting customers to buy. So keep those “Sale” and “2-for-1″ signs and tags handy. Got hand baskets? Stick quickie fliers and in-store coupons in them. And keep those basket handles in good shape. The way things are going, you could be sending text messages to them in the near future, using Wi-Fi and your computer. One can only hope.