In this month’s regular feature from CSD Associates’ Ashley Evans, we are shown through a tricky project in which a new self-selection area was installed below a mezzanine floor.
When I heard the lady on the phone saying that she wanted me to come and work my magic for her I was about to hang up, thinking that it was ‘one of those calls’ but something in her West Country accent rang a bell (pardon the pun), and it became evident that she had been assistant manager at a plumbers’ merchant we had redeveloped some years ago.
Her then boss, the rather dyed-in-the-wool, manager of the family business had been told by ‘the owners’ that the Trade Counter needed updating, and they called us in to assist.
On our briefing visit, it was immediately evident that the manager was very jaded, regarding “this design business” as an unnecessary fuss that got in the way of serving his regulars and was all a bit of a waste of money. But, if the owners wanted to do it, so be it.
We tried hard to talk through the principles of ‘putting products in danger of being sold’ but got nowhere. Apparently all that was needed was a nice new big trade counter with ‘shop windows’ built into the front, some new flooring, suspended ceiling and lighting — then he’d talk to some of his suppliers who would happily supply him with some (free) new display stands. Job done!
As far as products ‘in danger of being sold’, he said they would be more “in danger of being nicked”, describing most of his customers as thieving, er, people whose parents had never married… Even when we accepted that things like copper/compression fittings were vulnerable there were many other products in the range that were less so, and tradesmen would appreciate the opportunity to self select which, in turn would speed up service etc., etc., — still nothing doing.
However ‘young Rachel’ (who was in her thirties, managed the small showroom and had worked on the counter for 5+ years…) found the concept interesting and helped convince the ‘people with the cheque book’ it was worth giving a go.
An area adjoining the current Trade Counter under a storage mezzanine was accessed, ‘decorated’ and fitted out to create a self-selection area for things like the wide range of plastic fittings, plus a few tanks & cylinders, boxed taps & mixers and even some common, smaller sizes, of radiators. The manager’s bat and ball were taken home whilst he waited for customers to ‘vote with their feet’ and catastrophe to strike.
Unfortunately for him, neither of these things happened. The customer base increased and expanded, effectively championed by Rachel who maintained the quality of counter service whilst encouraging customers to browse the extended sales area. The only downside was the manager then performing a very nimble volte face and asserting that he “knew it would work all along”!
Scroll forward and Rachel could stand it no longer, successfully applying for a manager’s job elsewhere, then phoning us. Her intention was to carry out a similar exercise having talked enthusiastically to her new company about how things had gone where she had been before.
She was very keen to expand the sales area into a similarly adjoining area, but she ‘forgot’ to tell us before we arrived that we would have to deal with a RSM1 — a Rack Supported Mezzanine, ie: APR2 with the top beam supporting the floor and the racking beneath being used for warehouse storage. Now all this is fine and a perfectly ok and effective way of creating a two-level storage area BUT it does pose problems if you want to turn it into a self-selection area as every 2.7m you have an APR2 frame running floor-to-‘ceiling’, most of which are connected by beams, making the whole thing somewhat of a claustrophobic maze for a self-selection area.
Rachel did have the grace to admit that she knew she was making a big ask but she did not want to forewarn us in case we opted out and that was why she made reference to ‘magic’ in her phone call. So, we had to indulge in some SHS3 and OTB4 thinking in order to come up with a possible solution.
The breakthrough came from recognising that the APR2 frames were much like the columns in a structural mezzanine and that beams could be taken out in order to enable self-selection customer traffic flow.
It’s not quite that simple, as this can affect the loading capability of the mezzanine, but — working with the mezzanine suppliers — we were able to elicit that they had ‘over-engineered’ the original specification, giving us some latitude. Then a combination of doubling up of beams at the high level and not getting too carried away with opening up traffic flow and/or putting some intermediate frames in to not have too many 2.7m wide gaps meant we could satisfy the engineers and come up with a viable proposal for both the client and its customers.
Even so, we did have to emphasise that the area created would obviously still be very warehouse-y in feel — which could be reduced by removing eye-level beams to create ‘vision-windows’, lessening potential clostrophobia and improving stock vision whilst integrating some shop shelving and full width perforated panels above decked beam levels, where required, for the merchandising of smaller items.
However, some earlier systematic TMA5 had lead us to recognise that this was not about getting Mrs Jones to buy a new sink plug, it was about providing a quicker and more professional TASS6 service for tradesmen — and that’s just the sort of environment that this approach created. Fortunately, we were working with a manager who was interested and involved from the start.
JARGON BUSTER
1 = Rack Supported Mezzanine
2 = Adjustable Pallet Racking
3 = Serious Head Scratching
4 = Outside The Box
5 = Target Market Analysis
6 = Trade, Assisted Self Selection
