Decorate your store on a budget

The wallpaper, a part of visual merchandise (VM), is commonly printed digitally with innovative designs to create sharp image replication with high colour fidelity. A wallpaper should be in alignment with the basic DNA of the store. It should provide aesthetic integrity to the store and should compliment the store communication as a whole.

According to Mr Srikant Gokhale, CEO, X-Cite, the wallpaper, because of its high visibility, is pivotal in ensuring that the store communication is holistic and as per objective. He also says, in the X-Cite stores (which are entirely designed by the UK-based design firm Gensler), wallpapers have been used as a strategic tool to differentiate between different sections, and customers service areas are marked in orange, so as to facilitate the customers in asking for help. On the other hand, wallpapers here have been used to let the customers know about the various services along with all the advertising promotions and campaign themes.

Why use wallpapers? 

It is possible to enhance retail space with general or custom wallpaper to not only reinforce the themes and attitudes of the business, but to simply create an aesthetically pleasing space as well.

Brand can build an image by putting up attractive wallpaper of the merchandise as it leaves a visual memory for every walk-in customer. Smartly designed wallpapers attract the customers inside even if they do not intend to purchase. On the other hand, sometimes when the customers get confused before purchasing any product, the visual displays of the products can remove their confusions and would make them feel more confident, reveals Ms Palak Doshi, CEO, VAMAN.

Ugly walls send customers away from the retail stores. Furthermore, the walls that are poorly decorated fail to create a good ambience within the retail stores with no increase in footfalls and conversions and commensurate increase in profit margins for retailers. With this, small business owners must resort to printing services to produce decorative printed materials for stores and small business establishments.

A chain of family lifestyle stores, Ethnicity, which was introduced by Future Group in 2008, has been designed by Idiom Design & Consulting Ltd. Ms Sujata Nayak, Sr Space Designer of Idiom opines that in the Ethnicity stores, Indian intricate motifs have been used in branding, and for wall finish something close to these motifs were needed. Ethnicity thereafter attained a certain height of flexibility in designing and decorating.

Types of wallpapers:

Some of the more common types of wallpapers are: 

Vinyl coated paper:  This type of wallpaper has been treated with acrylic vinyl or polyvinyl chloride. The wallpapers are easy to clean and unaffected by long-term exposure to humidity or grease. This type of wallpaper can be scrubbed and striped and are ideal for high traffic stores.

Coated fabric: This type of wallpaper has an underlying layer of fabric also coated with a liquid form of vinyl. Coated fabric wallpaper works best in low-humidity areas. 

Paper backed vinyl or solid sheet vinyl: This type of wallpaper has a layer of paper or pulp backed to a decorative vinyl surface. Because of its vinyl surface, this is another good candidate for high humidity areas.

Fabric backed vinyl:  This wallpaper consists of a layer of fabric laminated to a layer of solid vinyl. There are two types of wallpaper included in this category. Solid vinyl is simply a layer of paper or fabric laminated to vinyl film. Since the applied vinyl is solid and not liquid, it is considered more durable than most other wallpapers. This wallpaper can be cleaned very easily and lasts for a long time. Paper wallpaper consists of a layer of decorative paper that doesn't necessarily have a protective layer laminated to it. 

Wall cling: A wall cling sticks to wall through static electricity. Adhesive wall cling's back can be peeled off and stick on the walls. Clients can choose from a variety of standard and custom sizes available for adhesive wall cling. Adhesive wall clings are printed on an adhesive matte fabric, which is designed to be water-resistant.

Attractive design for adhesive wall clings and vinyl wall stickers can attract more people to drop by on a retail store. Furthermore, creative wall prints set a positive mood among the people inside a store. With many options to choose from, clients can opt to print vinyl wall stickers and adhesive wall clings in different sizes, with different designs.

Benefits of using wallpapers 

According to Mr Gokhale, “The meticulous attention that has gone into designing the X-Cite store, including the wallpaper, has in fact emerged as the key differentiator for our store. It has tremendously added to our look and feel, thus clearly setting our store apart from the competition, turning it into a place where the customers come for shopping experience. This finally has helped us to generate a good footfall which directly contributes to the sales.” He also states, “The offers and promotions along with the services that are also communicated by the wallpaper give a reason for the customers to come back. 

A few ways to choose wallpapers

The best way to pick a wallpaper is to decide where it is going first and then follows the durability factor. The price of wallpaper varies greatly depending on the quality of paper, the pattern, and colors. Therefore Wallpaper comes with a variety of price tags and ranges from Rs 50 up to Rs 500 per sq ft depending on what the wallpaper is. More involved textures or natural products that have been back with paper for hanging tend to be far more expensive and are best hung by a professional.