Design Stores with Visual Aesthetics

Research results from Brazil’s University of Paraná indicate that if shoppers judge the exterior and interior design and décor of your store to be visually beautiful—what the researchers called visual aesthetics—the shoppers are more likely to become advocates for your store.

• Advocates spend time with you, and this makes it likely they'll buy a range of products and services.
• They are loyal to your business and want it to succeed. If they see something they know they could buy at another store or website for a bit less, they still prefer to give their money to you.
• They'll tell family and friends, and even shoppers they come across in your store or in competing stores, what a good job you do. If they hear criticisms of your business, they want to reassure themselves they're right in their feelings, so they'll talk down the criticisms.

     Visual aesthetics made the biggest difference when used in store departments carrying merchandise shoppers thought carefully about before purchasing.
     What different target populations of consumers judge to be visually pleasing may seem to vary widely. And those judgments do. But research does find three underlying elements:

• Symmetry with a few surprises. The underlying design should be balanced, with matching elements on the left and right and on the front and rear. But there also should be a few surprising asymmetries.
• Unifying themes. Consider the mandala—the form of artwork central to the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. The basic form is a square with four gates containing a circle having a center point, each gate in the shape of a T. Variations on this theme in religious and nonreligious contexts use four projections of the same image. Customers find visual aesthetic pleasure in store designs and décor that repeat themes. If a visual design theme is also reflected in sounds or aromas in the store, this augments the aesthetics.
• Familiarity. Researchers at University of Western Australia find that human faces incorporating an average appearance for a culture are more likely to be judged as beautiful by people in that culture. This is because what is average is more familiar to us. The familiarity may come about because of a principle of design common in a culture. In China, stores designed according to the principle of feng shui would be familiar, and therefore more aesthetically pleasing visually.

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