Progressive Grocer Store Design is the winner for the Best New Concept Design Content. Located in Orchard Park, NY, the Orchard Fresh location features free-flowing cases and an immediate overview of the store upon entry. There is 18,500 square feet of selling space.
Progressive Grocer reviews how Market Bistro by Price Chopper has transformed over the past year.
The first settlers of Rising Sun, Indiana, included Samuel Fulton’s family, uncle to steamboat inventor Robert Fulton. Quite fittingly, a steamboat casino parked on the Ohio River banks is one of the town’s most popular attractions. Rising Sun may be located in the smallest county in Indiana, but it attracts a big crowd.
One of this quaint town’s busiest supermarkets is family-run Rising Sun IGA. The store is only nine aisles wide, but its idyllic location, friendly staff, and excellent butcher shop make it a popular stop for tourists and locals alike.
Ray of Sunshine
Our goal with this grocery store interior design project was to enhance the supermarket’s homey, welcoming feel. We designed helpful store aisle signs and retail décor featuring the golden rays of the rising sun.
Delicious sun-ripened fruits and vegetables on the retail aisle markers direct shoppers to the store’s garden-fresh, local produce.
Mouthwatering Meats
The most prominent imagery along the back wall highlights the store’s specialty – its premium quality meats. Our design consultant Tom hasn’t stopped raving about the cut of filet mignon he and his family enjoyed from the store.
Hometown Heritage
Finally, the supermarket décor pays homage to the community’s most valuable resources – its stunning location on the Ohio River banks, its beautiful views of the rising sun over Kentucky hills, and its hardworking people.
CIP Retail is a turnkey firm specializing in design, engineering, manufacturing, and interior retail décor installation. CIP Retail helps you connect with your customers from local gems like Rising Sun IGA to nationwide chain rollouts. Contact us today to learn more about how we can turn your project into reality.
As our supermarket customers adapt to changing consumer behaviors and preferences, their store signage is changing too.
There are supermarket design trends that the pundits and prognosticators have talked about for a while now playing out in the grocery signage we manufacture for our customers. And then there are retail store signage changes driven by the global pandemic that no one could have predicted.
Below are some of the trends we see in grocery design and signage in 2021:
1. Smaller format grocery stores
Digital disruption in the grocery store business has been predicted for years, but 2020 finally brought the issue to a head. Now that online grocery store shopping is more prevalent among consumers, retailers are rethinking the layout and design of their physical locations.
It’s the ‘less is more theory.’ At CIP Retail, we are working on several retail store designs for customers in the process of shrinking their total store square footage to provide their customers with a simpler, faster shopping experience.
Sprouts is a good example, recently revealing to Winsight Grocery Business their plans to shrink their new stores from 30,000 square feet to less than 25,000 square feet. Lidl, the German grocer, is another excellent example. They tout easy-to-shop stores with just six aisles.
Smaller format stores serve several purposes, including reducing consumer confusion with too many options to choose from and making the shopping experience quicker and easier. Another benefit of fewer SKUs in the grocery store is more efficient supply chain operations. Numerous brands discovered this during the pandemic, reducing the variety of products they offered within a category to focus on keeping store shelves stocked with their best-selling items.
As online grocery shopping continues to ramp up, we may see other changes as well. For instance, grocery stores need more space for picking and packing online orders. Utilizing store square footage for order fulfillment rather than retail display and sales is an option many operators are looking at.
2. Using existing commercial real estate
Instead of building new supermarkets from the ground up, another trend we see among our grocery store customers is a willingness to renovate existing commercial real estate options.
We see more and more of our supermarket customers taking advantage of abandoned strip mall spaces and reinventing these buildings to serve the local communities with in-demand services such as restaurants and organic groceries.
These commercial real estate options allow grocers to put their stores in closer proximity to their target shoppers in many cases.
At CIP, we specialize in helping our customers adapt their retail decor packages to fit into non-standard architectural designs seamlessly.
3. Contactless shopping
Contactless shopping was in its infancy pre-pandemic, but we anticipate it is a trend that is here to stay even as pandemic social distancing orders come to an end.
According to Grocery Dive, some grocers saw curbside pickup service increase by more than 1000% during the height of the pandemic.
Experiences like buying online and pickup in-store or curbside pickup are quick and convenient for consumers – IF the correct signage is in place telling shoppers where to park, who to call, what to do, and where to go.
4. Signage that drives people to digital
Another signage trend is the need for more wayfinding signage related to a supermarket’s digital technology. For example, store aisle signs that encourage customers to download the store’s app for easier service or coupons and discounts is prevalent today.
QR code signage is another important tool for grocers. This signage gives customers instant access to information they need on their cell phone rather than touching a grimy kiosk or tracking down a store employee. Customers can scan the QR codes to bring up a map of the store, locate hard-to-find items, or quickly place online orders for out-of-stock items.
Part of the fun of designing, engineering, and manufacturing retail store signage and décor for supermarket chains across the country is the opportunity to see these supermarket store trends play out right before our eyes on our factory floor.
CIP Retail helps our grocery store customers transform their retail spaces’ look, feel, and function to adapt to changing consumer preferences and behaviors. We create beautiful spaces with maximum impact through the design, engineering, manufacturing, and installation of retail décor and signage.
From small requests to chain-wide rollouts, CIP is here to help. Contact us today to learn more.
Lidl is a popular German grocery market chain that is now rolling out new stores across the East Coast.
The proper pronunciation of the store name is “Lee-duhl, rhymes with needle,” as a spokesperson for the grocer told SCNow News.
But a quick internet search reveals passionate disagreement across the globe on this point. Brits pronounce it “liddle” like little, and then there are those of us who call it ly-duhl like lying down, which is just completely wrong.
No matter how you say it, though, you are welcome to shop.
CIP Retail is proud to partner with the new chain, which recently announced a $500 million new store expansion plan, including opening 50 new stores by the end of this year.
You can already see our handiwork in the Lidl stores in Glen Burnie and Columbia, Maryland, and our third store in Garwood, New Jersey, will open in August.
The National Retail Federation ranked Lidl number one on its Hot 100 Retailers in 2020, an annual ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing retail companies.
Tops Markets touts itself as your neighborhood store with more, serving customers in upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, and Vermont. The grocery store chain is in the middle of a $40 million capital improvement plan, completing major remodels at stores across New York.
The refresh has touched nearly everything inside and outside of Tops’ 65,000-square-foot Derby, New York store. CIP Retail is proud to have designed, manufactured and installed all interior décor and grocery signage.
The aisle signs and retail decor guide shoppers toward many new and improved features, like the produce area with a new fresh prep cut fruit and veggie station:
The expanded array of local craft beers:
A warm color palette and updated décor and graphics help support sales of Tops’ always expansive bakery options:
And self-checkouts added during the renovation to help expedite shopping:
CIP Retails has proudly partnered with Tops Markets for all its interior décor and signage needs over the last 10+ years, and we are excited to be a part of their growth and success.
The city of West Allis, Wisconsin, welcomed a new Festival Foods supermarket to its community on May 21. It is the second Festival Foods market to open in the Milwaukee area, and the chain now has more than 30 stores throughout Wisconsin in major cities such as Eau Claire, Green Bay, and Madison.
The West Allis location was CIP Retail’s inaugural project with the chain.
Festival Foods chose to partner with CIP Retail because of our ability to design and fabricate under one roof, improving communication and creating cost efficiencies.
At Festival Foods, every business decision they make is based on the question: “Will it bring the customer back?” We took this same approach with every suggestion we made for the Festival Foods décor package.
Festival Foods’ design is clean and simple. It is understated and easy to understand for the shopper. The enhancements we suggested not only were cost-effective and straightforward, but also helped bring consistency and balance to the décor.
For example, we added wood grain paneling behind most department signage, on soffit facia, and perimeter walls to coordinate with the grocer’s flooring choices.
We added trellis work and lighting to Festival Foods’ extensive beer and wine area to create a destination department set apart from the rest of the store. While the hanging trellis system looks massive and heavy, we constructed it from lightweight foam, so it is easy to install and cost-efficient.
We added extra wayfinding signage for navigation of the 73,000-square-foot store. And, working in collaboration with Festival Foods’ internal designer, we experimented with new graphics, fonts, and letter thicknesses to increase the overall punch of the package.
We walked the store with our new client on grand opening day, and we’re incredibly proud of the final collaboration. It is an honor for CIP Retail to work with Festival Foods and help provide their guests with a great shopping experience and exceptional value.
Sprouts Farmers Market opened its first small concept, 25,000-square-foot store on July 21 near Arizona State University’s West Campus, just outside Phoenix
The smaller-sized supermarket has an entirely new grocery store interior design, conceived by Thread Collaborative.
At CIP Retail, we collaborate with design studios all the time. Our manufacturing, engineering, and installation capabilities allow us to take great designs from the conceptual stage to the store without losing impact or breaking the budget.
Here is a behind-the-scenes look at some of the treatments and techniques we used to bring the store’s farm-stand heritage to life:
1. The grocery store vestibule features whimsically printed wall vinyl with an overlay of dimensional lettering.
2. Real-wood planking trimmed to precision is an homage to the local and regional farmers that Sprouts prides itself on partnering with to keep its communities strong.
3. For much of the store department signage, we printed directly onto beadboard paneling, maple veneer plywood, and Oriented Strand Board (OSB), a material that has the look of chipped wood.
4. For a flattering look on the refrigerated cases, we printed beadboard-looking graphics on magnets. We then wrapped the cases in these printed magnetic sheets.
5. The produce wall features fresh fruit tumbling out of crates created in varying depths, and the Sprouts letters are hollowed out on the inside to allow for the faux grass treatment.
6. In some instances, hand-stenciling creates the desired effect better than printing, so that’s precisely the approach we took in the store’s dairy and health and beauty sections.
When it comes to retail store signage, there is as much of an art to the manufacturing process as there is to its design. So if you have a retail décor project, we can bring it to life. Contact us today. CIP Retail is your one-stop shop for retail décor, consultation, and signage.
Whether you’re remodeling an existing store or building a new concept from the ground up, interior design is a significant component of your brand and budget. Printing is no longer just for point-of-purchase displays and wayfinding signage. With ingenuity, craftsmanship, and the right partner, you can use printing as an integral part of the process of building a truly immersive and on-trend retail space.
Creating warm, welcoming spaces
Shoppers and diners are demanding a more “home-like” feel to their retail experience. This demand has led to a tremendous increase in interior design plans that call for warmer palettes, lighter hues, and more texture and dimension in the space.
Exposed brick features and walls clad in natural materials like warm wood planks or shiplap are just a few ways designers incorporate this trend into grocery store designs, restaurant designs, and more. However, both brick and solid wood planks are heavy, complicated, and time-consuming to install.
With today’s photo-realistic printing technology, though, you can create a nearly identical look to natural wood using printing. We run up to 15 rolls of wall vinyl per week that can easily be installed in strips like wallpaper, but from a distance have both the look and texture of actual brick or wood.
Creating transportive designs
Another common trend in retail store interior design is to create an “experience” that draws customers in and makes them feel like they are someplace else.
The farmers’ market look is quite popular in supermarket interior design. The décor evokes the feeling of fresh air, fresh produce, and friendly faces. The style frequently uses galvanized metal accents, distressed wood signs, and lots of wooden crates.
Crating material is frequently made of oriented strand board (OSB), formed out of compressed layers of wood strands. Unfortunately, you can’t really run OSB through printers due to the quality of the substrate, so if you want to put logos or lettering on this material, you typically have to stamp it or hand-paint it. However, at CIP Retail, we can print text and graphics, along with a background pattern that looks precisely like OSB, on particle board to provide the same look.
We can also print on corrugated metal to create branded awnings and unique wall art.
CIP Retail has the experience and know-how to produce nearly anything you can imagine for your retail interior space design by combining the latest state-of-the-art technology with unmatched craftsmanship. Contact us today to learn more.