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Ian Wright Managing Director of Rufus Retail Anthropology, is a designer with more than 30 years experience in creating optimised retail commerce stores. Wright has helped some of the UK biggest retail giants improve there in-store design and layout, with a view to improve customer experience and increase sales
Having spoken at the recent SBC Betting on Football Conference at Stamford Bridge, we caught up with Ian to discuss how retail betting shops should look and feel, and what factors should be taken on board when designing a retail betting space.
SBC: Hi Ian, good to catch up – can you describe to our audience what retail anthropology entails, and how it benefits gambling operators?
Ian: In answer to your question, retail anthropology is really ‘the science of shopping’. Whatever the retail environment, clothes shop, pub, restaurant, night club, bookmakers, supermarket, department store, there are a number of factors that affect the way you ‘feel’ when you approach and enter the space. Obviously if you feel like you are going to have an enjoyable experience in the environment you have just walked into, you are more likely to stay there longer.
The golden rule of retail anthropology being, the longer you stay in any retail space, the more money you are likely to spend. In a nutshell, that is the main objective with any retail set up. It’s our job to try to make sure that the environment is targeted to our clients core audience. It’s not just one size fits all either.
If I could explain with a small analogy. I’m 52 and if I go to a pub for a drink/bite to eat, without realising it, these are some of the things that affect my feelings about the pub: What is the location like for transport, is the outside clean and well maintained, is the signage good, do the staff acknowledge me when I walk in, is there a good selection of beers and ales, do they sell decent food, is there a comfortable corner where I can sit and read a paper, are the prices reasonable, are the toilets clean, is there a free WIFi connection and so on? If all of these boxes are ticked then I’m half way there and by the way, these decisions are usually made within about 3 seconds of entering a retail space.
If we then drill down to a betting shop for example, we still want our clients customers to stay in the shop longer. So you then look at things like the temperature, is the air conditioning working, do the staff offer you a coffee, are the seats comfortable, are there regular betting opportunities throughout the day, are the odds competitive, do the customers use the shop to meet up socially with friends? Then, the position of ‘impulse’ betting offers is really important. Numbers and Football can be uplifted by having these zones near the front doors. In Britain, we err to the left, which is to say that we will notice things on the left as we enter a shop, more than we will notice things on the right. So, if we position the Football Coupons on the left, near the doors, then customers will be reminded on their way in about what’s on offer. If we also position the Numbers Zone on the opposite side near the doors, this area will catch the eye on the way out of the shop. Obviously, all of these details are designed to make a positive percentage difference, 5% on Football, 7% on Numbers 4% on Horses. This is just a small example by the way, as each shop is different and we look at the whole set up of the company from branding to the interior of their retail set up as well as locations and the client base.
SBC: You spoke at the Betting on Football Conference, and you stated that gambling operators should learn retail techniques from other commercials sectors. Which sector should gambling be looking at and what methods should they look to adopt?
Ian: I’ve got strong feelings about this area as I think that there could be a lot more done to make betting shops in particular, a better environment for customers.A lot of Bookmakers we’ve worked with are focused on trying to take a market share of the existing punters in a certain area from their competitors, essentially they are “trying to get a slice of the existing pie.”
This is all well and good, but I think that the sector should be looking to create new environments and new customer experiences. Customers who say they don’t gamble, but probably do put money on the lottery and also place odd football bet, need to feel like they could walk into any betting shop. However, there is still a stigma attached to doing these actions and that is what retail betting needs to tackle.
Taking the principle that ‘the more time you spend in any retail environment, the more money you are likely to spend’, the betting retail sector needs to look at how to achieve this. Coffee stores in Britain have increased dramatically over the last 10 years – just look at the popularity of your Starbucks, Nero’s or Costa Coffees. You could say that these retail points have taken over from pubs which we used to use as a barometer for locating betting shops. If there were 3 or 4 pubs near a betting shop, it would probably be a good one. Two or three of those pubs are probably now closed, but there are likely to be a similar number of coffee shops nearby.
I’m not a gambler, but I do have the occasional bet on a football match and I do like relaxing in a coffee shop plus I’m an avid watcher of sports. So, I see myself as part of the potential new audience. If there was such a thing as a sports coffee shop with betting facilities, I’d be in there like a shot, and if it had a Bar Football table, Large Screen TV’s showing all the latest sports, and free WiFi I would probably spend a great deal of time in there. And don’t worry, we’ve installed WiFi systems in shops where we can block the viewing of specific competitor sites, so that minimises the chances of customer drift.
SBC: When assessing a retail betting shop layout, what key points do you look to investigate or measure, and how do you look to improve a shops performance?
Ian: I like to take stock of all areas of the retail set up. Location of shop, consistence of brand, point of sale materials, clarity and competitiveness of offers. Then internally; position of all betting opportunities, position of main focal points like the Gaming Areas, TV Gantry and counter to ensure a good customer flow. Once we’ve analysed this information we talk to staff about the current client base split, male/female – young/old, we also talk to the owners of the business about what their objectives are for the business, what type of customers would they like to attract, what are their most profitable areas? We then work out what the optimum use of that particular shops space could be and how to achieve it, creating an exact scale plan of the unit to explain our reasoning. To keep costs to a minimum we design and manufacture ‘modules’ for each area of the shop (off site) which keeps the consistency of the brand whilst ensuring minimum disruption on site during any refit work which may be needed.
SBC: In your opinion, within a sports betting operators framework who should take the lead on the design and layout of betting shops?
Ian: Ideally it should be a team effort in my opinion. We’ve dealt with small independents with four or five shops where the owner is very hands on. We tend to join forces with them to get all of his knowledge and ours combined to give a really good foundation for making any decisions about what should be done. Sometimes it’s difficult for owners of businesses to see the whole picture from inside their bubble. In these instances, I feel it’s our responsibility to present options and reasons behind them for the client to decide for themselves with all of the information in front of them. With smaller independents, a lot of the time this exercise has never been done before and it tends to give everyone a lift to see their brand come together and understand the reasons behind why things work and don’t work.
For the larger operator it tends to be slightly more difficult to affect change because there are usually more stakeholders involved. With regards to the design and layout of the actual shops there are usually different ‘teams’ looking at each area. A large operator would probably have a brand manual and interior designs set in stone for all of the visual elements involved in creating their retail space. Sometimes each team is totally aware of the other’s perspectives, but sometimes they’re not. One team may be totally focused on getting the costs down and increasing margins and another is trying to make things look better.
I feel that both things can be achieved, whereby everyone wins, rather than looking at different elements in isolation. For example, it doesn’t cost any more to paint something the right colour and it makes better business sense to put a particular offer in the right place (based on the research done and historic facts) and again it doesn’t cost any more in most cases.
We find that a lot of decisions are being made about the design and layout of shops without all of the knowledge, especially when it comes to retail anthropology, which is hopefully where we can help.
SBC: You are keen to modernise the layout of betting shops, how should retail betting enterprises adopt new technology in order to improve the customer experience and ultimately improve sales?
Ian: The world has changed dramatically over the last decade or two. New technology plays a huge part in most of our lives. Mobile phones, tablets and flat screen TV’s are all around us and when they don’t work it’s the end of the world. We need to look at things from the target customers perspective and try to make betting shops places where this technology is utilised as much as possible. I know it’s not as easy to do in some betting shops, but if I use another example of how one sector has changed.
Think 20 years ago and high street electrical dealerships like Dixons for example. If I was looking to purchase something like a camera, I would have to ask a member of staff (behind the counter), if they could get the item out of a locked glass cabinet. They usually had the key on a chain attached to their belt and would grudgingly retrieve the item, after disconnecting the security cable from the alarm system, and stand over me whilst I checked it over. Contrast that now with an Apple Store. All of the products are laid out on tables, the reason behind this is another retail anthropology fact, human beings are used to picking up food from a table, so, psychologically we feel drawn to a table and are comfortable touching and picking something up in that situation. The staff at Apples stores are also out and about in the main part of the shop most of the time, not stuck behind a counter and are very knowledgable and keen to help. Obviously, the Apple products are well designed, so the chances are, once you pick them up you are hooked. Once you decide to purchase the item, they just type in your detail on their tablet or phone and it links up to the nearest receipt printer to give you the receipt. There have been very few barriers put in the way of making that sale. Like I say, it’s not as easy in some betting shops, but we need to think like this to try to change the way things are done at the moment.
SBC: Finally…Do you think that there can be a natural convergence between retail betting shops and their online counterparts?
Ian: A good online presence and a good retail set up should support each other to be honest if they are part of the same company. If they are, then from a public perspective, a good experience on one will give a positive impression of the other.
The difficulty comes when, although they both have the same brand name they are actually 2 separate companies, probably one in this country and one abroad, each with their own cost centres, overheads and targets. Add to that the associated tax issues and laws regarding advertising an ‘offshore’ business in a ‘land based’ shop in this country and it becomes a minefield.
I mentioned earlier about WiFi systems that can be located in betting shops and I know that location based technology (GPS) can be used to identify the location of the user if they are on a tablet or mobile phone inside the shop. So, it’s not a massive leap of faith to be able to make the online side available in the shop and track bets placed via the same brands online site, within their retail space, and offer a ‘kick back’ to the retail set up on any of these bets.
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Ian Wright Managing Director of Rufus Retail Anthropology
