The Rising Trend of Stores Inside Stores

Staying on top of retail trends is imperative to the growth of your company. One of the most popular current store marketing tactics is to have a store inside of your store. This offers many advantages, including more shopping options for your customers and potential rental income from the other storefront. The concept is simple—shoppers who would normally have to go to two separate places can instead check off everything on their lists at your store alone.

Consider this retail trend strategy for your business. For example, if you own a luxury clothing store, start up a partnership with a high-end accessory designer, beauty consultant, or shoe company. Choose stores that offer products related to the ones that you are selling, as explained by MacRumors. The retail giant Best Buy already features Apple Shops inside of its stores, and it is now talking about offering Samsung Shops that will help customers learn about specific features of products and provide demo stations for hands-on tutorials.

Once you have firm ideas for making this retail trend work in your shop, consider the layout of your space and how the kiosk or shop will physically fit. You can take Best Buy's route and set up separate stations devoted to the other store or stores, such as large glass cases in the center of your flower shop that showcase local custom-made gifts. If you are dealing with a smaller space, other retail trends for this concept include partitioning smaller areas with different types of flooring or with color blocking. For example, a center aisle devoted to natural beauty products in your health store can be highlighted with canopies or with brightly painted shelves that draw shoppers' eyes to the area.

Another retail trend, according to "The ultimate age of retail," is the rising tendency of shoppers to go "showrooming" and ultimately buy products online instead of from your store. Customers come into your shop to check out items firsthand—they check the quality and examine how products work, but then scan the barcodes into their smartphones and purchase online at lower prices. One store-marketing tactic to combat this is to offer to match any reasonable online price in your shop. Depending on your overhead and budget, you can do this all year long or just during busier shopping seasons.

Retail trends are constantly changing. The store-inside-a-store concept seems to be one that will continue to grow and evolve to offer consumers more and more one-stop shops. Even smaller retail businesses stand to benefit from collaborating with other local storeowners in efforts to help each other succeed and grow.

(photo courtesy of feelart / freedigitalphotos.net)