Having built thousands of retail environments for hundreds of North America’s largest brands, we know what it takes to grow a retail business from their 3rd location to their 4th, or as in the case of Farm Boy, from their 20th to over 40.
If you had to guess what the number one thing that kills the momentum of high-growth retail businesses is, what do you think it would be?
Here’s a hint: it’s not financing.
Finding the right locations? Nope.
It’s not market conditions either. Or access to goods. Or supply chain issues.
For retailers who are serious about growing their store count and footprint, the number one thing holding them back is people. Yes, you read that right. People can become the biggest bottleneck for growth.
When a retail business grows from 3 to 8 stores, or from 27 to 36, or more, when a leadership team makes plans to open 4-8-12+ locations in different geographies in the same year, their people, suppliers, and resources are going to get stretched.
And that’s what Farm Boy, a grocery retailer with 31 locations specializing in fresh produce and food with a farm-to-table wholesale approach, was facing.
Farm Boy spent over a decade growing from its first location to its 3rd. Compare that to the company’s plans to open 13 additional stores over the next 12 months, and you can see why their internal teams and existing suppliers needed help to keep up the pace.
And that’s why the good people at Farm Boy turned to us to help them plan, design, and build out the next set of stores, starting with their Newmarket Ontario location.
Here’s One Thing We Know:
If you want to grow, you need to have the right people, partners, and suppliers lined up.
You may have plans to expand like Farm Boy or something on a smaller scale. But the number doesn’t really matter. If you’re planning your next store or your next 50, each and every build-out has its unique challenges and opportunities.
As one of Canada’s largest retail-environment design builders, we understand that making the most of each retail space starts with understanding what inspires you and your customers.
Through research, decades of experience, and a deep-rooted understanding of what it takes to grow a retail business, we’ll work with you to turn ideas into actionable plans, and those actionable plans into a fully-built out store.
Contact our retail design team to talk about your next project.