Often overlooked and underrated, your retail floors have the power to completely immerse customers in the shopping experience. With so much focus on what is going on at eye-level, there is little competition on the floor, making it a large, visual canvass to tell your story. More and more retail marketers are discovering the promotional value and cost-effective advertising benefits of wall-to-wall custom image flooring.
Why should your flooring be the focal point of your retail space?
With competition for consumer dollars at an all-time high, customers are demanding an entirely different shopping, dining, and overall retail guest experience from traditional brick and mortar establishments. When you have one opportunity to make that first impression count, you must stand out. Just as your window display creates interest, your flooring can help draw in new customers.
People look where they are walking, looking down more often than up as they walk through your store.
Aesthetically-appealing, creative flooring is welcoming and engaging. Vivid colors and custom graphic designs set the stage and your customers expectations. Your flooring has the capability to communicate your image and brand identity throughout your entire shop. Colors, patterns, and graphics – they all have the ability to lead to special areas, determine the flow of traffic, and create a reason to buy merchandise. How you utilize your flooring for branding and sales purposes actually has a psychological effect on customers, yet they have no idea that it is influencing their purchasing habits.
How are some of the most recognizable brands using imaged flooring?
Maybe no one does it better than Disney. From their theme parks, to their retail stores, to their gift shops, to the flooring on their cruise ships, the moment you step foot on a Disney property, you know where you are and why you are there. Disney transports you into their world, from Mickey Mouse ears to a wonderland where princes and princesses reign, their flooring and wall graphics serve an important role in theme development and brand identity.
If you’ve ever been to IKEA, you know that the retailer’s traffic flow is dictated by its floor. And you really can’t get to the checkout register without winding through the entire store.
Dick’s Sporting Goods’ shoe department utilizes a wall-to-wall flooring that looks like a running track. Shoppers can walk or run around the simulated track to test shoes fit and comfort.
Think of the last time you visited Target. The color red and their iconic target logo are everywhere, including subtle brand incorporations in some stores using red strips in its flooring to section off departments. Target leaves you feeling youthful and gets you excited about shopping.
Retailers use images and colors to evoke feeling everyday and everywhere. The color blue is associated with trust, purple with creativity, yellow optimism, and orange with friendliness. Greens leave customers feeling calm, peaceful and healthy. Now just imagine what you might do with your in-store flooring.
Looking for ideas to utilize your flooring real estate?
Where you are located and the types of products you sell will more than likely determine how you use your logo, color and images to extend your brand within your flooring.
- Use floors and walls to replicate a playhouse when selling children’s toys.
- Bring famous characters from the pages to flooring and wall coverings within a bookstore.
- If you are a Middle Eastern eatery, use your floors to replicate Persian rugs.
- Incorporate sea and beach elements if selling swimwear, boats, etc.
- Make your flooring resemble the great outdoors if you are a hunting, fishing or game supplier.
- Turn your store into a basketball court or baseball diamond to sell more athletic apparel.
- Grocery retailers can take the opportunity to display graphics suitable to individual departments such as produce, meats, seafood and more.
- The possibilities are really only limited by your imagination!
A hot trend in retailing now is the idea of a store within a store. You can utilize your wall-to-wall custom image flooring and wall coverings to set areas off and create individual themes surrounding specific merchandise. For example, you can park a new vehicle model on flooring graphics that target the emotions of the driver most likely to test drive and buy that particular car. As seasons change, so does clothing – your flooring can designate new fall arrivals as customers walk in the door.
Ready to take the next step in building your image?
G‑Floor Graphic® Print Media offers retailers a solution to printing eye-catching graphics, vibrant colors and detailed logos on premium, durable 100% polyvinyl flooring and wall coverings. Retailers love the multi-use applications of G‑Floor Graphic, including the capabilities of large format printing and wall-to-wall flooring installation options.
G‑Floor Graphic Print Media products withstand the test of time and hold up to thousands of footsteps everyday and for years down the road. Polyvinyl is comfortable underfoot for customers and employees, yet is tough enough to drive on.
Specially-engineered without foams and fillers, G‑Floor Graphic is solid polyvinyl, lightweight and recyclable. Your custom graphics are protected by the industry’s thickest wear layer/top coat. G‑Floor Graphic won’t scratch, tear, curl, peel, delaminate or deteriorate even under the toughest conditions. It can withstand shopping carts, rolling dollies, heavy shelving, and lots of customer abuse.
G‑Floor Graphic is waterproof, slip-resistant, UV-resistant and stain-resistant. Our flooring is low maintenance and easy to clean with a vacuum, mop, soap and water, and/or vinyl cleaner. With clear, textured and colored options, G‑Floor Graphic Print Media has a size and thickness to accommodate any retail flooring space and any creative design. Now go forth and make the most of the valuable floor beneath you… create a shopping experience, extend your brand and build up your image wall-to-wall with G‑Floor Graphic!