(click on the drawing to enlarge)
So often, owners of garden stores set up the checkout areas with very little thought. In fact, the least attention in the entire design of the buildings is given to the checkouts, customer flow during the peak season, parking and the overall accessibility to the business. These factors will eventually determine greatly whether the business grows or just will flat line in the years to come. Checkout areas, one of those "pinch points", will determine whether you are a good garden store or a great garden store.
We have studied the checkout areas in a number of stores, both large and small, processing a variety of products. We have paid particular attention to the large garden stores in the
Establishing an indoor/outdoor checkout station, our own concept just makes a lot of sense for efficiency and economy. There are a lot of slow days in the gardening season, rainy, cold weather that leaves the outdoor checkers just standing there shivering, all because the company wants that area manned. In other locations, the checkout is left abandoned looking like a beached whale with the few shoppers who have braved the weather left wondering where to buy their stuff. Tacky.
Also, As spring turns into summer and there is no need for the numbers of checkout stations at the garden shop, the pattern of most owners is to just leave the checkout sitting there, again, gathering dust. Think about it, the most highly exposed, visible display location in the entire garden store is occupied by a bunch of counters piled up with just junk and a cash register with a cover over it! Our slower season design for the unused checkout #L turns that area into an extremely valuable display space. #18 are a series of portable panels that are placed as a backdrop and display while still utilizing the counters for display. The cash registers, electronic equipment and all other checkout materials are stored inside the #18 as they surround the space.
The design calls for a total of four checkout "kiosks". #A and #K are permanent cash registers checkouts throughout the season. Kiosk #L is utilized as the season gets busier and then as a display unit later. Kiosk #L1 is a portable removable unit that is used only in the very high peak season weeks of the store, then removed and stored. There can be a total of eight cash registers (indicated by the colored squares on the plan) at full tilt gardening season. All the kiosks are wrapped with removable slot board panels that feature popular impulse items for gardeners.
Although our check out employees are trained to answer a number of “customer service” questions, the most experienced employees manning in kiosk K double as “informational” persons manning our information counter using areas #4 and #5 for brief consultations (with a supplemental information station at the outdoor nursery office). In the indoor checkout #A, the “information” station is at #11 and #12. The employees at Kiosk K continue to check out customers as well as manning the information counters until nearly the end of season.
Kiosk #K is not only an information area. It is also a plant "pharmacy" for problems and solutions. Wall #20 is shelved, holding chemicals and fertilizers most often recommended by our store, with easy access by these information employees. All resource materials, an Internet connected computer and printer, and store handouts are at their disposal in this area to consult with gardeners.
In this scenario, we can envision, during off peak season, a minimum of one and a maximum of 2 employees responsible for checkout and information, cutting employee labor 50% over traditional garden stores. Following the season closure, all checkout and information counter equipment and resources are removed and stored.
We want our checkers to mostly process the material "cart to cart", moving the customer purchases from their transit cart to a new cart as he or she processes the material. The colored hatched areas are for empty carts waiting for this processing.
Impulse sales are important to the business. There are numerous panels, #18, that both shield the cash registers and display often popular products for gardening.
These areas are for checkout and exiting the store. Customers flow in one direction only. The width between the checkout stations is sufficient to allow two rows of customers with their goods and a center aisle for transit.
There are breaks in the counter checkout kiosks to allow employees to easily move out to the floor is necessary to help customers in their immediate area.
Most checkout stations in garden shops, as viewed by the customers who wait to complete their transactions, are a mess. They see exposed shelves below the counter with just crap that has been left there over weeks and months. Some have covered these exposed shelves with cheap fabric stapled to the wood and that is really awful looking. We have chosen to keep most of the shelves exposed but we insist that the storage is orderly and appealing at all times. It is not offensive to show production materials at the checkouts. It is offensive if these materials are a train wreck. Additionally, all the counters are to be uncluttered like the bartender presents his bar; clean, uniform, unobstructed.
Each employee in the checkout stations stands on heavy duty rubber mats, which are the finest mat available to ease the physical problems of continuous standing on concrete.The corners of the checkout counters are rounded to prevent injury to employees and customers.
There is a locked cabinet under each checkout station for the employee to store personal items, purses, phones, etc during his or her shift.
Many garden store owners and managers insist that the checkout employees stand at their registers for the entire shift. This practice, in our view, is downright brutal. Try it sometime for an entire shift! They also expect that the employees in this area do little or nothing but handle transactions. Get on one of those registers on a cold slow day and try not to go insane just doing nothing but waiting! That is one of the reasons for high turnovers of checkout employees. They go mad! We have attempted to ease these issues in several ways. First, small bar stool chairs are available to the checkers during slow time and they are encouraged to use them. Second, we have given the checkout employees other tasks to perform; laminating signs, making tags, producing new handout brochures etc. We want our employees in these stations to feel productive in their workday, even the slow days when the place is deserted.
The checkout stations in garden stores or any retail store are the first impression a customer has of the professional look of a business. Those checkout employees are the ambassadors of the store, the first faces of the business. We make every effort to keep all our employees motivated and enthusiastic about green garden gates.
No comments:
Post a Comment