Every Small Business Can Have a Great Storefront

Rarely does a tax office or a corner bodega strike awe in a passerby - let alone even catch their eye. But Storefront Mastery - a creative marketing agency run by architect and bookstore owner Jaime Izurieta - is on a mission to change that.

Working with small business-based economic development organizations including Main Street America and local groups such as business improvement districts (BIDs), the Montclair, New Jersey-based consultancy helps guide design interventions and experiential enhancements that create "great storefronts."

The intention is always to create a "win-win," Izurieta told LoopNet; elevating not just the value of an individual business, but also the property it's in, the street it's on, and the entire neighborhood ecosystem in which it operates.

When Mediocre Storefronts Get a Makeover

Though Izurieta's clients are often civic stakeholders, his end-users are small businesses that typically fall into one of three categories: struggling, flatlining or visionary.

"Flatliners" make up the bulk of small businesses.

These are the corner stores, dry cleaners and beauty salons, for example, that are solid - but not stellar. "They sell their products, honor their suppliers and pay their rent," Izurieta said. "But they don't turn enough of a profit to create new things or invest in changing the design of their storefront."

Neighborhood ecosystems rely on these businesses, though, so placemaking organizations will often put money on the table for store owners "to become more visible, get more customers and be stronger players" in the community.

Through public grants, pooled funds, levies or other incentives, a program might offer a store anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000, he said. Izurieta's work in these cases doesn't entail massive interventions requiring construction permits, but cosmetic solutions such as changing a blade sign to a wall sign or using paint and basic materials to refresh the façade.

But, he said, "You'd be surprised how many of them don't take free money."

To get buy-in from store owners, Izurieta makes proposals that are a product of their knowledge; through fielding info about how the business operates and how they'd like their particular type of business to look and feel. He interviews business owners not about their taxes, payroll and supply chain, but about the public-facing aspects of their operations. "What is the interaction with your customers? What is the information they see on your signs? What is the experience of walking into the store and buying something?"

He's seen store owners who initially didn't seem to care about the process go on to "create something fabulous with just a few tips that we give them about their display design."

Then there are the businesses that are struggling. "Some enterprises don't have the means, the knowledge or the will to invest in marketing. Some don't even have a concrete business model," Izurieta explained. In these cases, he said, "we try not to go too far with physical interventions because if you are not able to make rent, it's probably not wise to invest four or five thousand dollars on a new sign."

But What if My Business Is Boring?

Barring fundamental issues, though, no store is unqualified for the type of design refresh that Izurieta does.

"Every single business can have a great storefront," Izurieta said.

Take something like accounting, for example. "I had a tax accessor in Highland Park, New Jersey, who was like, 'My business is boring.' If you walk by, you see two desks with people working on computers, doing other people's taxes. It's not the most glamorous thing," he said. "But it's a business that everybody needs, and it's right on the sidewalk in a particular place with particular characteristics," allowing it to entertain and engage people strolling by or getting pizza two doors down, he said.

Piggy banks now line the storefront window - all in the brand's colors, but transparent to show coins in them and the office in the background. "We created an amazing, playful display - changing the way people interact with the business and the entire dynamic of the street."

Propping up some of these weaker storefronts goes a long way in creating a more dynamic district, but Izurieta said it's even more important to play upon the strengths of the strongest stores.

Elevating Stores Into Experiences

Referencing the concept of the "experience economy," Izurieta said that the ideal for some top-tier businesses is to be not just a place that sells products or services, but an attraction. "Most businesses will never even consider charging an entry fee, but the aim is to be so awesome that they could."

It doesn't matter what the business is, he said. "As long as the owners speak the language of growth, of abundance, of creation of wealth and creation of wellbeing for the entire neighborhood."

It's the "visionary" operators like these who are much more open to new ideas, he continued. "They understand the potential of adding more complex and thus more costly offerings ... not just to attract new types of customers to their stores but to elevate the entire context of their community."

That could entail the installation of immersive, animated light sculptures to "create a fantastic nighttime interaction between the storefronts and the sidewalks," he said. "Or an amazing mural ... using the storefront as a canvas for the business owner to invite people in."

Color is another way Izurieta sees store owners grabbing people's attention. "They're using the entire storefront as a sign - painting the whole thing green, for example, and then hand-painting the name of the store on top of that."

Or, they'll have an artist paint a fake façade on the actual façade of the building, creating an illusion. Paint's not always even necessary, he added, noting that he's also seeing a trend in printed murals secured onto the side of the building. "It's a bit too noisy to have 10 of these types of things in the same block, but it's a very good way of creating something entertaining."

Of course, façade interventions aren't always possible if the store is in line in a strip mall, part of a larger building or in a historic district, he noted. But that doesn't mean a storefront can't still be unique.

A timeless way to make a store stand out is with hand-painted signs, he said. But hand-painted signs are a trend that's becoming so ubiquitous it risks becoming commonplace if it's not done right, according to Izurieta. "Some businesses will contract their hand-painted signs out from a place that's shipping signs all over, and people will start seeing the same signs in Omaha, Los Angeles and New Jersey," he explained. "So, what can you do when a type of design becomes homogenous? You can be unique. You can compete with small businesses in supply and scope. But where you cannot compete with small businesses is in uniqueness."

To capitalize on that strength of small business, he warned, stick with local artists for hand-painted signs. If you go to Paris or Barcelona or even Richmond, Virginia, he explained, you see a specific style of hand-painted sign. "They use the materials, the craftsmanship, the mechanics and the history of a place that together become a recognizable component of the local identity. It becomes very hard to replicate anywhere else and it wouldn't even make sense to replicate it anywhere else."

Collaborations are another way to capitalize on the strengths of the local community, he continued. Think bookstores that have an in-house coffee shop or wine bar and offer staff picks on recommended pairings - or a cookbook with a corresponding apron and spices, or socks with tea. "It turns buying products into a full experience."

The champion of this might be the large Canadian bookstore chain, Indigo, he said, which has made cross-selling products part of its business model. "But the more I work with smaller businesses, I see that they are doing similar pairings with their local counterparts - offering discounts to other local businesses and deeper collaborations to strengthen the bond of a district."

Measuring Success in Storefront Design

So, whether you make changes that are eye-catching, experiential or even existential, how do you measure success?

"Design interventions are mostly qualitative," Izurieta said. "But I'm starting to develop a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) for both the districts and the businesses ... measuring how many more customers come in, and how many comment that they are coming in because they saw the new design."

But a particular business only gets more customers walking by if certain tactical recommendations are implemented at the district level, he continued. Foot traffic varies tremendously by location, but he said it's on a more even playing field when there's support from placemaking interventions such as pedestrian spaces, accessible paths and outdoor seating.

"On a district level, the KPI is mortality," he said. "If you have businesses that were only staying open for 1.5 years, and now after two years of doing this, your businesses are staying open for 1.8 years, there is a chance that the interventions that we proposed [are working]."

Building Owners' Role in Revitalization

That said, property owners have a stake in storefront redesign, too.

Some landlords are resistant to any changes the tenant wants to make after signing the lease, Izurieta said. Many are apathetic to minimal changes that don't require construction permits or physical alterations such as the demolition of an affixed sign or replacement of an old awning.

But the best owners are on board with enhancing a store's appeal and they're proactive about placemaking.

"There are some fantastic building owners that see the value in curating their tenants," he said. They don't just put up space for rent and passively collect income - they work to elevate not just the value of their property, but the "context" of the district and the business environment they're in through placemaking efforts.

"The building owner kind of becomes an incubator where businesses come and thrive and then maybe outgrow the space, leaving it open for the next business who wants to be there because they know the owner is working to build out a context in which they can thrive," Izurieta said.

Owner-operators represent the best scenario, according to Izurieta. "When the business owner owns their unit or their building, the entire dynamic changes. They are much more willing to work on both the building and the business, which for me is great because we can experiment with different types of signs, with different lighting and in creating an even deeper interaction with the sidewalk."

How Tech Can Help Small Brick and Mortar

But it doesn't matter how many people wander into a store if they ultimately favor an alternative online shopping experience, Izurieta continued. "What a lot of people do now is go into a store, try on sneakers, for example, and then go buy them on Amazon."

The antidote, he said, is the "omnichannel experience." It's incredibly important for small brick-and-mortar businesses to invest in their online storefronts as well, he said. "More and more businesses are creating amazing online experiences that mimic a consistent, branded experience of shopping in person so that if customers choose to shop online, they do so on the store's website and not other people's channels that charge a big commission."

Small businesses don't necessarily need to invest in their web development, though, he continued. Beyond Main, for instance, is "a shopping platform that has all the infrastructure for payments and inventories and everything a store needs, but the developer of it doesn't charge commission because she works with Main Street America and other organizations that help uplift local small businesses and brands."

BIDs and other civic stakeholders can also take advantage of tools like Placer.ai, he continued, which "provides an incredible amount of insight and data points about who their customers are, where they're coming from, their household income and what they do before and after visiting the store. Do they just come for five minutes and leave? Or do they come have dinner or coffee or go shopping and spend the whole day here? Those insights are amazing."

Another invaluable tool to placemaking is Urality, he said, "which makes community maps ... so we're able to map the assets and see how many people are walking into different stores, what the conversion rates are, and then make changes. Maybe we need more parking here; maybe more trees and shade here; maybe more illumination there."

Data contributes to helping small businesses offer increasingly customized experiences as well. "We're able to share data we're collecting from different platforms to help organizers better plan events," he said, citing Montclair's Jazz Festival, for example. "In turn, we share insights about people coming to the events so that businesses can prepare and maybe even tweak their offerings to make their business more attractive to people with certain characteristics."

He concluded, "It's all about finding those win-wins."