Retail By Design

When Monique Zafarana undertook her first retail venture nearly two years ago, she had only a name and an idea. The idea: to open a boutique where women could find trendy but practical clothes, sensual home products, high quality cosmetics, and guidance on how to apply them. The name: Mariposa. Spanish for "butterfly," it captured the transformation Zafarana wanted women to experience in her store.

Zafarana wanted her boutique to be homey but chic — "old world meets glamour with a contemporary flair" as she puts it — but she had no clue how to turn the image in her mind into a three-dimensional reality. As she wryly notes: "A vision in your head is not necessarily a vision."

Enter PPC Design, a Novi-based corporation specializing in retail design. Founded in 1971 as Programmed Products Corporation, the company's objective is to boost revenue for its clients by creating retail spaces that truly appeal to the their target audience. The company, which over the past three years has installed more than 25 million square feet of award-winning space, has been recognized for the last two years as a top 100 designer by DDI magazine and a top 100 sign manufacturer by Retail Construction magazine.

Originally specializing in grocery store redesign, PPC now overhauls everything from credit unions and bookstores to drug stores and hospitals. According to PPC Design President and Owner Chuck Voydanoff, who started with the company 18 years ago as a finish carpenter, there is no stage at which PPC won't jump in to help retailers revamp their look. The company has been equally at ease with major chains such as Borders and Meijer as with fledging businesses such as Mariposa. According to Voydanoff, about 15% of the company's business is in Detroit, 60% in California, and the rest as near as Denver and as far away as Dubai.

Everything starts with an initial consultation, during which PPC looks at retail and demographic data to discern precisely what a company sells and to whom. From there, it begins to modify the layout and aesthetics of the store to draw a larger crowd.

In the case of Mariposa, a PPC designer accompanied Zafarana to several sites before she settled on its Rochester Hills location. Zafarana then showed him pictures from magazines that captured the look she wanted, which were turned into blueprints complete with furniture, soffits, lighting and décor. Zafarana and PPC together arrived at a boutique with vivid autumnal hues of mustard, eggplant and burgundy that boasts a front-facing apothecary with bath and home products, a three-chair makeup studio with a mosaic floor, and clothing racks — and butterflies — throughout. The process, from conception to realization, took about six months.

"What we achieved was an inviting atmosphere so people come in and feel comfortable taking their time and poking around," says Zafarana, whose clientele includes primarily women from their mid-twenties to mid-sixties. "They gave me great alternatives if there were things I liked that didn't fit within my budget and just really listened to everything I said. It's quite amazing to verbalize what's in your head and see someone actually create it."

According to PPC Design Director Steve Bacon, the firm may start with an existing retail space and make minor modifications to shelving or signage, or it may begin with a completely bare space and design everything from scratch. It may procure products from outside vendors, but it often manufactures design materials and merchandising aids in its 85,000 square-foot facility.

Sounds, smells and colors are all tools the company uses to lure shoppers from one point of a store to the next. For example, Bacon notes, grocery stores will most frequently put flowers and coffee kiosks near their front entrance for two reasons. The first is expediency, as shoppers often visit stores like Safeway or Kroger solely to grab flowers and a cup of joe. The second reason is sensory. The freshness of flowers and the invigorating scent of coffee prompt shoppers to linger in a store, increasing the odds they'll spend money. Conversely, sounds like the clinking of silverware and the whirl of a vacuum cleaner are typically off-putting, says Bacon, as are the smell of less-than-fresh fish or meat.

Colors and signage play a large role also. Stores that attract retirees do better with neutral colors and signs with large letters, notes Bacon, while stores targeted to younger crowds get results with vibrant colors and edgy graphics.

PPC's clients may invest anywhere from $5,000 to six figures in their makeovers. So does PPC guarantee its clients a return? According to Bacon, stores have to do more than look pretty.

"You can never actually guarantee good results," says Bacon. "We can give [a retail outlet] every tool in the world to succeed, but in the end it all depends on their service. A store can look absolutely wonderful but, if you get bad service there more than twice, you'll never go back."

Instead, says Bacon, PPC shows prospective clients figures for past projects. A perfect example is a Cleveland store that has seen its sales increase by 10% month over month since getting a PPC makeover. Or a small Oklahoma chain whose 20 grocery stores now rival Walmart stores, which Bacon says were "beating them up savagely" before PPC intervened.