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Unit 3: Image Mix

8. Successful companies use design as a powerful tool in their marketing strategy by making Notes
better products and building a strong retail identity.
9. Design creates a better environment at the workplace and projects the organisational
image.
10. Good design offers many benefits - a vastly improved quality; a defined statement of
identity; an optimising of resources.
11. A well-planned retail store layout allows a retailer to minimise the sales for each square
foot of the allocated selling space within the store.

12. Store layouts generally show the size and location of each department, any permanent
structures, fixture locations and customer traffic patterns.
13. Each floor plan and store layout will depend on the type of products sold, the building
location and how much the business can afford to put into the overall store design.
14. There are a number of different types of layouts commonly found in retail stores.
15. The layout used will be independent to the width and depth of the product range, the
nature of the product categories sold, the type of fixturing used and the constraints of the
outlet in terms of size and shape.

16. The objective of a store layout is to maximise the interface between customers and
merchandise.

3.3 Image Mix: The Top Six Elements

Image mix is the mental picture that a retailer tries to project to the consumer. To a consumer, it
is a persons attitude towards a store. Need to project an image, a functional and psychological
image in consumer’s minds that is necessary that is acceptable to the target market. It depends
on the atmospherics, reputation, number of services offered, product mix, pricing etc.
Image mix is the sum total of all those essential factors which are required for the consistent
recall in the value of brand. The top six elements comprises in the image mix are as follows:
1. Employee
2. Merchandise
3. Fixture

4. Sound
5. Odour
6. Visual

All the above six elements of image mix are specific to the type of retailer a customer go ahead.
The desires and requirements of a customer who append to local shop are distinct from those
who visit a specialty goods retail outlet or a departmental store.

Employee should be suitably educated and well dressed. The type of merchandise determine its
density in a store. A supermarket is considered to be very dense. The fixtures have to complement
the value merchandise. This in turn, has a big impact on the ease of shopping. Further sound can
be pleasant or unpleasant and it may have a direct impact on the atmosphere of a store.
An example of pleasant sound is a music and that of an unpleasant sound is like motor traffic and
vehicle sound. Like sound, odour too has a positive as well as negative effect on the atmosphere
of a store. An example of positive odour is that of fresh coffee or flower and that of negative

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