As more and more shoppers flock online to buy their new toasters, shoes, hedge trimmers and yoga pants, brick-and-mortar retailers face an increasing challenge: how to compete?
Don’t underestimate landscaping. It’s a powerful tool to bring shoppers to your door.
Landscaping is great marketing. It attracts customers with beauty, makes the in-person shopping experience fun, and adds ease and comfort.
How to get online shoppers off the couch and into your store?
Here’s a look at six great retail landscaping ideas.
Light Up The Night
One good reason to stay home at night and shop online from the recliner: it’s dark out there.
Banish that excuse by bathing your retail property in beautiful, professionally designed lighting.
Lighting adds an instant sense of safety and luxury. It highlights the best features of your building, making it more inviting, and it encourages customers to leave the dark behind and explore your retail space.
It also offers peace of mind, so visitors don’t have to worry about the trek from their car to your store and back.
Key areas to light: entrances, sidewalks, common areas, parking lots, signage, and surrounding landscaping.
Test it yourself after dark: would you venture out at night to shop at your business?
Guide The Way
Landscaping is a great tool for wayfinding.
Professional landscaping around signage automatically draws attention with colorful flowers and interesting plants.
It can also help direct shoppers around your property. Hardscape paths and landscaped beds guide pedestrians, while large planters encourage them to keep strolling.
Skilled maintenance is crucial here, too. Well-kept landscaping ensures branches don’t block sight lines and plants don’t obscure signage.
When shopping is easy and hassle-free, customers are more likely to close their laptop and come check out the goods in person.
Create Relaxation And Fun
Add a beautiful, inviting common area to your retail property to encourage shoppers to relax and linger.
The more appealing and comfortable it is, the longer they’ll stay.
Provide spots to munch a snack or sip a cold beverage, with umbrellas for shade from the sun. Colorful flowers in beds or planters add beauty, interest, and soften the edges of hardscape.
Want parents of small children to stay — and spend — longer? Include a playscape to make shopping a fun family event.
Just Add Water
Add a water feature to your common area with a refreshing spray or a soothing gurgle. Moving water equals instant serenity for grown-ups and instant fun for kids. Plus, water features add a high-end vibe to your space.
Consider a “pondless waterfall.” These recirculate water like a fountain, offering the drama of a waterfall without the space or maintenance needs of a pond.
Add water, and you’ll add relaxed customers in no hurry to leave.
Attract Shoppers With Color
It’s impossible to ignore drifts of bright, attention-grabbing flowers. Stunning beds and large-scale planters with tropicals like bird of paradise, hibiscus, shrimp plant, and elephant ears create visual excitement.
Enhance your signage with colorful lantana and begonias that attract attention but don’t grow tall enough to block visibility.
When customers venture closer to check out the blooms, they’ll be that much closer to spending.
Instant Intrigue: Add A Living Wall
Living walls — vertical gardens that turn blank walls into colorful, creative works of art — bring instant appeal to retail spaces.
They draw crowds, encourage browsing, and even serve as selfie spots. Living walls can be installed directly on a structure or created as freestanding pieces for placement anywhere on your property.
Boost Your Retail Appeal With Greenscape, Inc.
Make your property a go-to destination with creative retail landscaping ideas that not only lure shoppers in, but also encourage them to stay longer.
Couches are comfy, but the right landscape enhancements can create a sense of energy and intrigue you won’t find shopping from home.
We’ve been meeting the full-service landscaping needs of commercial and residential customers in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary areas for more than 35 years.
We offer landscape management and lawn care, design and build services, irrigation, landscape lighting and more.
Call us at 919-552-7742 or fill out our online form to request a free consultation and learn how we can transform your landscape.
We can’t wait to hear from you.