EHI Research Store Planning + Design

From modern shopfitting to the store brand

Modern store design and contemporary fittings and fixtures support the sales efforts of retailers more than ever today and ensure that a retailer can put an individual face forward to the market, even creating a genuine store brand. This makes it all the more important always to keep abreast of developments in this area.

EHI maintains direct contact and pursues a regular exchange with experts from the store planning and shopfitting fields and provides information about new trends and developments in international store design so that successful shop and store furnishing ideas and concepts can be used to the advantage of the entire industry.

The EHI services in the research area Store Planning & Design furthermore encompass:

• Publication of EHI Store Monitor - a guide to the backgrounds and core figures of the shopfitting and furnishing markets.
• Cross-sectoral documentation of the furnishing costs in retailing, including extensive background information on project and procurement management in shopfitting
• Organisation of EHI Working Group Store Planning & Design
• Documentation of current topics: steel price increases, benchmarking of costs for new superstore construction
• Organising of annual EHI congress Store Planning & Design as an international industry meeting
• Organising of study tours of the working group, including extensive store checks

Due to rising energy costs having a particularly heavy impact on the financial situation of retail businesses the EHI is now - within its Store Planning & Design research division - the issue of energy management to the forefront of its activities. This involves:

• Documentation of practical measures and projects which contribute to the energy-efficient operation of different areas of a retail business (lighting, refrigeration, construction, heating)
• Looking at advance energy-saving concepts and products for the retail business by interviewing expert store planners and engineering managers from retailing companies and industry.

The EHI will reward espcially innovative and successful energy-saving concepts with the Energy Management Award 2008 (EMA). The prize will be awarded to retail businesses that have implement successful concepts for saving energy or using energy resources in a more efficient manner in their outlets.