The rising trend in the retail sector for providing clean, clear Omni-channel experience to the customers is keeping shopfitting manufacturers busy in developing fresh layouts on a regular basis for retail stores. But, if we look at any analysis, the shopfitting businesses, especially the small and medium ones, continue to struggle in maintaining profit margins that can promise a sustainable future growth. The situation is prominently because of the slowdown in retail sales with rising internet shopping trends.

Staying ahead in a competition and churning better revenues in these conditions means manufacturers need to do something extra, something that may require moving out of their conventional processes and offer their customers more value with least investments. While retailers very well understand the need to apply fresh and modern look to the physical stores, there is a trend of standardized fittings that is taking shape within the retail sector. This is where shop fitters, Point of Sale (POS) and display equipment fabricators should keep their focus on and integrate digital technology in the design processes to gain a competitive edge.

Online Configurator for Shopfitting

While digitalization is a key to success, shopfitters need to take a step further and provide a purchasing experience that is not only convenient to the customers, but also cost-efficient from the manufacturing standpoint. The trend of utilizing standard fittings made up of wood or sheet metal means an opportunity to integrate configuration tools and scale up the capabilities for mass customization. Standardization invariably allows manufacturers to create a master 3D fit out CAD model virtually and derive different configurations through the application of design automation tools. While this approach does help in reducing the lead times and associated manufacturing costs, there is a possibility to offer the configuration capability even to the customers.

With the aid of online configurators, shopfitting manufacturers can establish a new sales approach, where customers themselves can configure the fit-outs according to their space requirements and can choose from multiple accessories, colors and material type. Even more, the configurator can automatically determine the cost of each custom configuration selected by the customer. And, being implemented on web-based platform, customers can access the configurator anytime and on any device. Online configurator as such adds more value for shopfitters, by delivering a more engaging buying experience to the customers.

The Need for Change in Design Process

Offering customers an interactive buying experience through online configurator does require manufacturers to revamp their existing design processes. The conventional process of developing new designs with every new custom order from scratch is what needs to be eliminated, and this requires developing a broad product knowledge that will go into DriveWorks - a Design Automation Solution tool

Identifying standard modules, accessories that will be assembled to these modules and the parametric relations between them has to be figured out. The resulting information can then be utilized to establish logic to populate different configurations of the same fit out design. While it is possible to develop custom web-based configurator that can be used on the website, The Pro version of DriveWorks provides the ability to take the configuration capability online through live module. There are other online configuration tools as well, such as the Autodesk’s Configurator 360, which works with parts developed using Inventor iLogic.

Struggling shopfitting manufacturers can successfully bring more business opportunities by going digital and offering customers more value through an interactive purchasing experience using online configurators. This approach not only allows in minimizing repetitive design tasks and reducing lead times, but also enables manufacturers to remain competent and profitable through distinctive capabilities.