Factor analysis

Over the past four weeks we’ve looked at how you can help passengers get in the right frame of mind to spend in travel hubs through appropriate amenities, wayfinding, and hassle-free processing.

To round off the month, we look at the factors which will enhance the overall offer and drive footfall when planning a commercial environment.

Commercial zoning
Finding the right location for the commercial offer is essential, especially for time-poor passengers. The zoning needs to take into account offers which will drive impulse spend, but the placement of similar brands is also important. Hero brands can create a halo effect for other brands so their correct positioning is vital, as is the mix of retail and F&B together.

While it is useful to have similar stores adjacent to each other, such as the clustering of fashion stores and F&B units, it’s important that the zones have an appropriate mix of categories. The inclusion of amenities such as seating (with at-seat power), toilets, vegetation, art installations, play areas, and the like all help increase dwell time in these valuable zones.

Our sister company, Holmes Wood, described successful wayfinding, and how critical it is to the overall experience in their recent article. Once passengers have found their way into the commercial area, the zoning should help them plan their way around, allowing passengers to move back and forth from one category to another, from one zone to the next. By breaking up the typically linear journey for a passenger it helps drive both awareness and penetration of the offer.

Visibility of the offer
Travel environments are, by definition, transitory places with those travelling through them usually short on time. Improving the processing points and providing clear wayfinding can help improve the dwell time in the commercial areas, but this is all for nothing if passengers cannot see the majority of the offer.

In larger buildings it is not possible for the entire offer to be taken in from all vantage points, but careful planning and design of the commercial area can help ensure units stand out - without taking over. For example, pop-ups and promotions (mentioned in our recent Pragmatist) are very visible – and can create quite an impact – but they should be low-height units to allow them to not obstruct a passenger's understanding of what lies beyond them. Height can also be used effectively, with double height frontage in particular helping the legibility of the offer.

Retail trends are forever changing: what consumers flock to one day, they turn their noses up at the next. The carefully arranged zones, with their visible fascias and planned adjacencies need a curated offer that is relevant to the profile of the people passing through the offer. And in curating the commercial offer a distinction needs to be made between what is trending and what is simply a fad, one that will fade from the public consciousness before it reaches then end of its lease agreement. Fads have their place in the mix, helping stimulate interest and engagement, but are better suited to short-term pop-ups rather than larger inline units.

The units themselves need to be flexible enough to accommodate the changing trends and consumer demands. A trend that requires a small store may be replaced by one that needs a larger unit or change from a retail to an F&B category, and the fabric of the building, contract lengths, and zoning all need to be adaptable to adjust when required.

Price positioning
The right balance needs to be struck between creating an accessible price-point and one that is aspirational. As with the retail trends, the exact nature of the offer needs to be relevant to the customer base and building an understanding of who is using passing through the travel hub is paramount – unlike a shopping mall, the offer does not define who passes through the building.

The perception of the price positioning can also be affected by a few key items that are well known outside of the transport network. An exorbitant price on a bottle of water may be profitable as everyone needs to drink, but the consumer will soon associate the entire commercial offer with being overpriced even if this isn’t the case. A loss leader might not be needed, but a balanced approach is.

These are just some of the factors we examine in our work, and our experience includes train stations, motorway services, airports, and metro networks. At each stage in the journey we consider the user and how their needs change as they navigate through their surroundings.

Chris van Ryswyck