The Store That Works
Design-Driven Profitability in Grocery Retail
Grocery is stuck between growth and profitability. Design is how the store becomes both a destination and a high-performance engine.
The pressure on grocery retailers is straightforward but unforgiving: e-commerce volume must grow, and it must grow profitably. Yet the traditional grocery store was never designed to function as a distribution center. As a result, fulfillment is often treated as an expensive afterthought, creating a widening gap between digital growth and real profitability. The era of simply “bolting on” delivery and pickup systems is over. Costly labor, inefficient workflows, and congested store layouts are precisely why so many e-commerce investments fail to deliver returns.
To succeed in this new hybrid environment, your store must be a single, unified machine: a highly efficient fulfillment engine that is also a customer-focused retail destination. Our firm is uniquely grounded in both advanced architectural design and the operational realities retailers face every day. We believe sustainable profitability begins with rethinking the store itself, by design.
Authors
Amy Ward
Account Manager, Grocery,
Food & Beverage, IA Retail
Account Manager, Grocery,
Food & Beverage, IA Retail
Carlotta Dove
Ryan Benson
Design Director, IA Retail
Caitlin Eicher
Designer, IA Retail
Ron Singler
Creative Director, IA Retail
Contributors
Meet the Grocery Shoppers of Tomorrow
Research with 300+ U.S. shoppers shows a clear path forward: stop designing for “the one customer.”
Distinct shopping missions require distinct design responses, aligning consumer needs with operational efficiency to reduce friction and drive profit.
From Efficiency
To Experience
The Old Model is Broken
Grocery is stuck between two losing plays: high-cost CFCs with uncertain ROI, or stores forced to do jobs they were never designed for, killing margins and the customer experience.
One Store. One System. The Store that Works.
One Store. One System. The Store that Works.
You Don’t Need 1,000 Fixes. Just Three.
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Re-engineering the back-of-house to maximize throughput and slash the expense of picking/preparing orders.
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Compressing the center store to create high-margin, high-engagement “Food Theater” destinations.
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Fixing the last-mile bottleneck by designing for quick pickup for customers and maximizing staff efficiency.
