This page is for a factory-side merchandiser or a buyer who already knows a category's own target floor space, as set in lesson T22-C03-L01, and now has to decide where inside that space the fixtures actually stand. At work, a fixture plan drawn without checking how customers really move through the store can put the right amount of floor space in the wrong part of the store's own path, so customers never reach it. This lesson mainly teaches the product flow: it shows how the fixtures a factory supplies with an order are placed to match a store's own real customer flow, not an assumed one.
Delta Garments ships Order A's own fixture kit, two gondolas, one wall bay and folding tables, together with the T-shirts themselves, for Fairway Stores to set up in its flagship store's own 175 square metre T-shirt space. At that store, 80% of customers turn right on entering, a real, recorded pattern, not a guess. A fixture plan that ignores that pattern can give the T-shirt category its full target space in a part of the store most customers never walk through.
You need: lesson T22-C03-L01, which sets the category's own target floor space this lesson's fixture plan fills. A working knowledge of a store's own basic layout, aisles and entrance, is assumed but not required to follow the figures here.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: calculating a category's own target floor space, covered in lesson T22-C03-L01, and measuring whether a finished layout is earning its space, covered in lesson T22-C03-L03.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Fixture plan | The arrangement of fixtures, such as gondolas, wall bays and tables, inside a category's own floor space. |
| Customer flow | The recorded pattern of how customers actually move through a specific store, for example which way most customers turn on entering. |
| Gondola | A free-standing, double-sided fixture, open on both sides, used to display stock in the middle of a store's own floor. |
| Wall bay | A fixture fixed to a store's own wall, usually shelving or rail, used where floor space along the perimeter is available. |
| Fixture kit | The set of fixtures a factory ships alongside an order, sized and matched to that order's own target floor space. |
| Entrance turn pattern | The recorded share of customers who turn a specific direction on entering a store, used to decide which side of the entrance gets the higher-traffic space. |
Once a category's own target floor space is set, as in lesson T22-C03-L01, that space still has to be filled with fixtures placed where customers actually walk, not merely somewhere inside the category's own square metres. The general rule is to place a category's own highest-priority fixtures along the store's own recorded customer flow, particularly near the entrance turn pattern, and to place lower-priority fixtures further along that same path.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Export order with a factory-supplied fixture kit | Delta Garments ships Order A's own gondolas, wall bay and folding tables together with the T-shirts, sized to the category's own 175 square metre target space. | A fixture kit matched to the target space still has to be placed against real customer flow; matching size alone does not guarantee the right position. |
| Domestic reorder using existing store fixtures | A domestic retailer such as Cedar & Co. reorders stock and reuses fixtures already standing in its own shops rather than receiving a new kit. | Existing fixtures may already sit in the right position from a past reset, or may need moving if customer flow has changed since they were last placed. |
| Flagship store with a strong entrance turn pattern versus a small-format store with none | A flagship store's own 80% right-turn pattern gives a clear placement priority; a small-format store with only one aisle has little flow variation to place fixtures against. | Where a strong flow pattern exists, ignoring it wastes it; where flow is weak or absent, other factors, such as a category's own adjacency to a related category, guide placement instead. |
| Hybrid model, wholesale-bought fixtures plus a retailer's own additions | A retailer receives a factory's own fixture kit for a wholesale-bought range but adds its own tables or rails for a domestically sourced addition to the same category. | A fixture plan is judged by whether the finished arrangement matches customer flow, not by which fixtures were supplied by the factory and which the retailer added itself. |
Fairway Stores' flagship store records that 80% of customers turn right on entering, toward a section of floor that includes the T-shirt category's own 175 square metre target space from lesson T22-C03-L01. Delta Garments has shipped Order A's own fixture kit, two gondolas, one wall bay and folding tables, sized to that same target space. The merchandiser setting up the store places the two gondolas, the kit's highest-visibility fixtures, closest to the entrance on the right-hand path, and the wall bay and folding tables further along the same path.
Placing the gondolas on the right-hand path, matching the store's own recorded 80% turn pattern, exposes them to 400 customers a day. Splitting the same fixtures evenly across both sides of the entrance, ignoring the recorded pattern, exposes them to only 250, a 150-customer difference the target floor space alone never revealed.
This is why the method below treats customer flow as a separate input from the target floor space itself: a fixture plan can satisfy one and still fail the other.
The methodA common mistake is a merchandiser confirming that a category's own fixtures fit inside its own target floor space and stopping there, without checking the store's own recorded customer flow at all. What this costs is real: at Fairway Stores' flagship store, gondolas placed on the low-traffic left-hand path instead of the recorded 80% right-hand path would reach only 100 customers a day instead of 400, a 300-customer shortfall every day the plan stays wrong, even though the square metres on paper matched the target space from lesson T22-C03-L01 exactly.
Once a shop knows how much space a category should have, that space still has to be filled the right way. Most shops have a real pattern in how customers walk through them, for example most people turning one direction as soon as they come in. The best-looking fixtures should stand on the path most customers actually use, not just somewhere inside the correct amount of floor. A fixture plan that gets the square metres right but puts them on the wrong side of the entrance still loses customers who never walk past it.
Fairway Stores' flagship store team is setting up Order A's own fixture kit. The left-hand path near the entrance is currently empty, so the team plans to place both gondolas there for a clean, uncluttered look, leaving the busier right-hand path for a different category.
Should the gondolas go on the empty left-hand path because it looks cleaner? Decide before opening the answer.
No, not on the recorded evidence. An empty path is not the same as a busy one; the store's own recorded flow shows 80% of customers turn right, not left.
First, placing the gondolas on the right-hand path reaches about 400 customers a day, based on the store's own recorded 80% turn pattern, against roughly 100 a day on the left.
Second, an adjacent category already on the right-hand path is not, by itself, a reason to move the T-shirt category's own gondolas elsewhere; the two categories can share the busier path, arranged so both remain visible, rather than the higher-traffic path being given up entirely.
The team should keep the gondolas on the right-hand path and work out how to fit both categories along it, rather than moving the T-shirt category's own fixtures to the emptier, lower-traffic side for the sake of a cleaner sightline.
A 300-customer daily shortfall in exposure, repeated every trading day, is the real cost of a fixture plan that fits a category's own target square metres but ignores the store's own recorded customer flow. Lesson T22-C03-L03 shows how to turn this kind of exposure gap into an actual measure of whether the finished layout is earning its space in sales.
Open the course workbook's "Fixture plan" sheet. Enter the store's own recorded entrance turn pattern and daily footfall, then assign each fixture from the kit to a path; the sheet calculates the customers each fixture is exposed to under the plan you enter.
[Download the Space planning and store layout worksheet](../../templates/T22-C03-space-planning-and-store-layout-worksheet.xlsx)
Download the Space planning and store layout worksheet (Excel)
1. A store's own recorded flow shows 65% of customers turn left on entering. Where should a category's own highest-priority fixtures go?
2. A category's own target floor space is correct, but its fixtures are placed on the store's own low-traffic side. What is the most accurate description of this plan?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixture plan | خطة التجهيزات | Plan d'agencement | Ekipman planı | The arrangement of fixtures, such as gondolas, wall bays and tables, inside a category's own floor space. |
| Customer flow | مسار حركة العملاء | Flux des clients | Müşteri akışı | The recorded pattern of how customers actually move through a specific store, for example which way most customers turn on entering. |
| Gondola | الجندولة | Gondole | Gondol | A free-standing, double-sided fixture, open on both sides, used to display stock in the middle of a store's own floor. |
| Wall bay | الرف الحائطي | Linéaire mural | Duvar rafı | A fixture fixed to a store's own wall, usually shelving or rail, used where floor space along the perimeter is available. |
| Fixture kit | طقم التجهيزات | Kit d'agencement | Ekipman seti | The set of fixtures a factory ships alongside an order, sized and matched to that order's own target floor space. |
| Entrance turn pattern | نمط الانعطاف عند المدخل | Schéma de circulation à l'entrée | Giriş dönüş örüntüsü | The recorded share of customers who turn a specific direction on entering a store, used to decide which side of the entrance gets the higher-traffic space. |
You now know how to place fixtures to match a store's own real customer flow. The next lesson shows how to check, after the layout is running, whether it is actually earning the space it was given. Back to the course map