The Selling Floor
The Selling Floor, store concept consulting that stays for the build
Store concept consulting, the part of retail consulting that happens on the floor, is the work that makes a physical store sell more with the products it already carries: the store layout, the customer flow through it, where the eye lands first, how products are staged and signed, and how the store team keeps all of that sharp at every reset. The Selling Floor is our program for it. We built and ran stores before we advised on them, and we fix your floor with your store team, on the floor, until the concept holds without us.
The result shows up in three numbers your store already tracks: foot traffic, conversion rate and basket size.
What a store says with its floor
Stand at the entrance of a 4,000 square metre showroom for ten minutes (we planned one, in Hyderabad) and watch which way people turn first, and how many stop at the first table. That table sells whatever you put on it, so it had better carry margin. But the corner behind the checkouts stays cold until something gives customers a reason to walk there. A store is a sentence the customer reads with their feet, and a good store concept writes that sentence on purpose: the entrance, the first hot zone, the cold zones that need a job, the queue that can sell too.
The basket that leaves half empty never appears in a report, because the customer who did not find the item simply did not buy it. That gap is measurable, and an operator who has run a floor closes it in weeks with the fixtures you already own.
What The Selling Floor includes
| Step | What we do | What you keep |
|---|---|---|
| Point-of-sale audit | We walk your floor as a customer, door to basket, and lay the customer journey over your sales by category | A ranked list of the places where the sale leaks, with the revenue behind each one |
| Concept and store layout | Circulation, hot zones and cold zones, planogram, staging, signage and ambiance, rebuilt around how people shop in that store | A store layout your team can execute, with new shopfitting only where the old fixtures fail the customer |
| Implementation with your team | We work the floor with your store staff for the first two weeks after the change and leave the idea box method we grew inside IKEA | A floor that is already selling when we leave |
| Team coaching | Your people learn to read the floor the way the customer does and hold the concept at every reset | A visual merchandising standard the store applies on its own |
Pricing is scoped to the store and to the number of sites. You get the scope in a working session with the operators who would run it, and the same people then run it.
The method itself is written up in our guide, the store that sells. You can run a good part of it yourself. Bring us in when the render is done and the floor still isn't selling.
The proof we bring
One of us spent 31 years at IKEA. That record includes the commercial planning and build-up of IKEA's first store in India, in Hyderabad, where the 4,000 square metre showroom carried 57% of the store's sales (2016 to 2018), 15 store projects across France, 10 new builds and 5 rebuilds, on showroom design and concept, and a children's range rollout with the layout validated store by store across 28 stores, each one adapted to its own customers (2012 to 2013).
Later, at Ingka Centres, the same operator applied one IKEA integration concept across about 30 shopping centres. At IKEA Västerås, opening the market hall onto the gallery to give the store a direct entrance brought 60 more visitors a day, the count our operator reported from the centre's follow-up (Ingka Centres, after 2019). Small move, real number.
Another of us ran, as shopkeeper, the IKEA store that was first in sales in Switzerland, with the bathroom department up 70% and the rug department up 100% (2012). A third took a French fashion house's store to first place for men's sales in its market and into the top three worldwide for visual merchandising.
In a flagship store in a global retail group, our team stabilized the store's network first and redesigned the layout on top of the fix. Foot traffic rose 20% and the store went from losing sales every week to growing again (internal measurement, 2018 to 2021). The layout did not do that alone, and we say so, because a figure you can't defend is worse than no figure. The full record is on the proof page and in the turnaround case. IKEA is where most of this record was built, and IKEA was never our client.
The position we hold
A store concept the store team has not run on the floor for its first two weeks will not hold six months later, whatever the render looked like. Store design agencies and shopfitters produce concept books and fixtures we respect, and the best of them draw a floor we would sign off ourselves. Where the book stops is where the sale gets decided: on the floor, at the second reset, when a new manager moves the table back (honestly, that table moves more often than anyone admits). That is the part we keep. Implementation and coaching sit inside the program, and we count the concept finished when your staff runs it without us.
The two layers of the floor
The Selling Floor is the human layer: the customer journey and the team that stages it. The Connected Floor is the technology layer: electronic shelf labels and the systems that run the store. A store sells best when both layers are built together, and we run both. Everything else we do is listed on what we do.
Questions, answered straight
What is store concept consulting?
It is the practice of designing and fixing how a physical store sells: store layout, circulation, hot zones and cold zones, product staging, signage, and the routines that keep the floor sharp. Good store concept consulting is measured in the store's own numbers, foot traffic, conversion rate and basket size, before and after the change. A render is one input to it. The floor is the output.
What does the selling floor mean?
In retail, the selling floor is the part of the store where customers shop and staff sell: everything from the entrance to the checkout, as opposed to the stockroom and the back office. We named the program after it because that is where a concept either sells or doesn't. A store format can be drawn in an office. It only becomes a store concept once the selling floor has been walked and counted.
How do you measure whether a store concept works?
Before anything moves, we count: visitors per hour at the entrance, the share who reach each zone, the conversion rate at the checkout and the basket size by category. After the change, the same counts on the same days of the week. A zone that was cold and now carries sales is the clearest signal. Foot traffic tells you whether the entrance works, conversion tells you whether the floor does.
Which stores does this work for?
Any physical format with a floor to walk: big-box, showroom formats, fashion, city stores, plan-and-order points. Our record runs from a 4,000 square metre showroom to a French fashion house's store. A small floor is read by the customer the same way a large one is, only faster, so the method carries over without a bigger team.
Can we keep our shopfitter and our fixtures?
Yes. The audit tells you which fixtures fail the customer and which simply stand in the wrong place. Moving what you own comes first, and new shopfitting is specified only where the concept needs it. If you already work with a store design agency, we take their concept book as the starting point and build the floor from it with your team.
What do you need from us to start?
Access to the store on a normal trading day, your sales by category for a recent period, the current planogram if one exists, and the store manager for the audit day. Everything else we bring. Start a conversation and we scope the first store together, or begin with a scoped FOCAL Diagnostic if you want the numbers before the commitment.
Does the work include visual merchandising?
Yes. Staging, facing, hot zone rotation and signage are part of the concept and of the coaching, and the store keeps a visual merchandising standard its team can apply at every reset. The in-store experience is decided at that level, product by product, and one of us ranked top three worldwide for exactly that work.
Walk us through your floor
A working session on your store, with the operators who would fix it. Bring the floor plan and the sales by category, and we will tell you where the sale leaks before anyone signs anything.