Finding Bespoke Shopfitting Companies from the UK

Whenever a new product or marketing campaign is launched, professional shopfitting companies are needed to create fitting bespoke fixtures for use within specific retail environments. Nowhere is this more true than in the UK – its citizens are known to expect the quality of products to be reflected in their presentation, particularly in the upmarket segment. Combined with the fact that supplying the United Kingdom can be difficult and time-consuming because of its island nature, retailers and commercial businesses need the help of specialised shopfitting companies from the UK such as ARNO.

In order to be able to design bespoke retail fixtures for the UK market, shopfitting companies need to understand a few elements: the culture of the country and its aesthetic preferences, its marketing and advertisement history as well as the available infrastructure. As the cultural makeup of the UK is quite diverse, UK shopfitting companies need to employ natives to understand all the subtleties required for constructing interior retail fixtures. To provide for this complex marketing situation, ARNO GB Ltd in Bristol is staffed by a team of UK natives who know the country and its markets in extensive detail. Aside from the over 80 years of experience, which ARNO has acquired asserting ourselves among international shopfitting companies, our shopfitters can thus also draw from their experience living and working in the UK. However, one aspect that gives us an edge over other shopfitting companies from the UK is the fact that while most of our employees in Bristol are British through and through, they are also supported by the expertise of all international companies within the ARNO Group. This means that while the design for your store interior or individual display unit is created using in-depth knowledge of the national market, our viewpoint is not as limited as that of many other shopfitting companies from the UK. Because of this, our designs are able to incorporate marketing elements which have already proven themselves in other cultures. This serves to create displays that fit with the country, while at the same time revitalising the British marketing world. Among displays made by other companies, which only follow tried and true British design concepts, ARNO displays, shop in shop systems can thus stand out with interesting designs not used by other UK national shopfitting companies.

There are also a number of purely practical reasons to choose UK shopfitters:

• Displays have to be manufactured on time for product launches.
• Order picking and shipping needs to be available on short notice.
• The installation of a new shop interior has to be finished overnight.

UK-based shopfitting companies are naturally in a good position to provide these services very quickly on a national level. However, many shopfitters, even ones based in the UK, often work with separate shipping companies to get displays to wherever they are needed. This can lead to additional costs in terms of resources and time – costs that are ultimately entirely avoidable: ARNO is a one-stop solution for any UK shopfitting needs. Unlike most companies, we take care of everything from design and construction to shipping and even on-site installation.

This effectively minimises the time required to get from the initial design process to the finished displays or SiS systems being used in your UK stores or partner stores. Using our highly efficient order picking system, any combination of fixtures stored with us can also be shipped to your business in the shortest possible time frame. Even when given only short notice, our professional shipping staff knows how to get you anything you need, anytime you need it, faster and more conveniently than other UK shopfitting companies. Once our fittings have arrived at your store, ARNO employees stand ready to install them for you. This is particularly useful when the installation of complicated systems within a strict time frame demands utmost precision or when the complex layout of an entire store has to be fitted. Of course, if you would prefer to have your UK workforce handle the displays on their own, we can also train them to ensure that re-arranging the fixtures can be done without the help of professional shopfitting companies whenever the need arises.

We can provide you with almost any type of fixture needed, from free standing display units and counter displays to stands or shelving units. We produce our fixtures in large quantities to be able to provide fittings for use in multiple stores and entire franchises. However, in contrast to many other UK shopfitting companies, ARNO’s speciality is designing and manufacturing entire modular systems such as can be used by branded outlets or stores based on the shop in shop concept. The modular nature of our systems is factored into their design from the very beginning of the process. This is because, unlike other shopfitting companies from the UK, our designs are not created solely by designers and people involved in marketing. They are supported by engineers, metalworkers, carpenters and various other manufacturing experts as well. Aside from allowing our designs to be highly practical even as modular pieces, this shopfitting approach also ensures minimised manufacturing costs. However, such practical aspects should never outweigh the importance of a perfect design for effective marketing. For example, when confronted with the question of which materials to use, many shopfitting companies from the UK will always opt for either the most high-quality materials or the least dear. Meanwhile, our manufacturing experts might propose low-cost alternatives to high-quality timbers and glass – but they will do so only if these materials provide sufficient structural integrity to the entire unit while leaving the actual visual design and its effect on UK customers intact at the same time.

We know that brand recognition is a major driver of sales. And while many other shopfitting companies from the UK know this as well, most do not consequently put enough focus on this aspect of retail design. When tasked with creating bespoke fixtures, the first order of business is to analyse the brand associated with the product or service being advertised. Among shopfitting companies, ARNO is one of the most proficient when it comes to identifying brand-defining attributes and applying them to fixture design. Effective branding is meant to allow for easy brand recognition, but also to give customers unfamiliar with the brand the right impression without needing to look twice. After all, a jewellery display which emanates values such as ‘quality’ and ‘exclusivity’ or an outdoor sports shop in shop system that can effectively convey the notion of ‘active lifestyle’ will immediately draw the attention of any customer that identifies with these concepts.

Many contemporary UK shopfitting companies focus heavily on creating bespoke fixtures for retail environments - such as branded shelving units. What these companies often do not understand is the fact that customers are already engaging with online shopping to a major extent. In fact, many retail stores have made significant losses due to the competition of this convenient alternative to physical shopping. Unlike these companies, ARNO believes that retail design needs to focus on its own inherent strengths while simultaneously drawing from the shopfitting technology offered by the 21^st century to satisfy the demands of even such an allegedly conservative marketing space as the UK. This is why our displays, shop in shop systems and entire shop designs often employ high-tech elements such as multimedia displays or touch-screen interfaces. In this way, customers are able to actually interact with our display systems while engaging most of their senses:

• Watching moving pictures or video on a digital display.
• Listening to music or sound effects from an integrated speaker system.
• Touching interactive interfaces or product samples.
• Smelling fragrances wafted in via hidden electronic scent dispensers.

We are convinced that, in order to provide an alternative to online shopping, retail needs to understand what retail does best – offering a genuine physical shopping experience. And in contrast to most other shopfitting companies from the UK, every aspect of our store designs, shop in shop systems and even individual display designs reflects this conviction.

While many shopfitting companies consider themselves mainly designers or manufacturers, ARNO is a shopfitter in the truest sense of the word – we can fit entire shop interiors, from the overall layout to the point of sale design and from individual fixtures to the effective integration of shop in shop systems. The first step in this process is to come up with a coherent store-wide design concept based on your brand and marketing strategies. This concept can then be used to create fixtures or even fully modular systems which allow any part of the store’s interior furniture to be exchanged for other display elements without negatively affecting the coherency of the overall store design. Being a company based in the UK, ARNO GB can provide this service more quickly than most international shopfitting companies. Our fittings are designed and manufactured in the United Kingdom, eliminating long shipping times and guaranteeing that your store or stores will be right on schedule, no matter where in the UK they are located.

ARNO is a company that prides itself on exceptional worldwide service, high-quality retail fixtures, creative designs and branding excellence – our acclaimed designs and sizeable portfolio of satisfied clients certainly concurs. When looking for shopfitting companies from the UK, we are the comprehensive solution for all aspects from designing to shipping and even on-site installation. If these reasons to choose ARNO over other international or national shopfitting companies have piqued your interest, simply contact us with your ideas or with a full project briefing and we will take care of everything you need – always cost-efficiently and always on schedule.