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    Feng Shui for Retail Stores
    Feng Shui for Retail Stores
    Feng Shui for Retail Stores
    Ebook159 pages1 hour

    Feng Shui for Retail Stores

    By Clear Englebert

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    About this ebook

    Clear Engleberts fifth book, Feng Shui for Retail Stores, is the result of over four decades of retail management experience combined with two decades of professional feng shui experience. Store owners have dubbed this book, A must-read for my staff. This thorough book covers: location and exterior, layout and visual presentation, merchandise selection and pricing, employee and customer interaction, plus all the retail details that make merchandise move. It is an essential book for owners, managers, and employees of retail stores. It has received praise from many authorities.

    Theres no stone left unturned here. Consider buying this book very inexpensive success insurance for your store. Karen Rauch Carter, author Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life

    Business start-ups and veteran retailers alike can benefit from this essential training manual which deftly integrates feng shui principles with a treasure trove of sound business practices for retail success and prosperity. Angi Ma Wong, author Feng Shui Dos and Taboos

    An excellent book to improve your own shop and enhance your expertise if you work in feng shui or any form of shop design. Takes the reader logically though every aspect of setting up a successful retail store. The book is well written and it is easy to follow the common sense, practical ideas. Covers many aspects of feng shui and mixes this with essential good business practice. A book that is inspirational, motivating and reminds us of all the ways we can improve a retail space. Simon Brown, author The Feng Shui Bible

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMay 24, 2013
    ISBN9781475985818
    Feng Shui for Retail Stores
    Author

    Clear Englebert

    Clear Englebert is in his third decade as a feng shui consultant for the owners and tenants of thousands of homes, businesses, offices, and public buildings. He has witnessed transformations in the lives of his clients through the application of feng shui principles. Clear views feng shui as an interpretative language of visual symbols, avoiding superstition and consumerism in his practice.In 2000, his first book, Feng Shui Demystified, was published by The Crossing Press of California, followed by Bedroom Feng Shui the next year. In 2008, his first Hawai'i book, Feng Shui for Hawai'i, was published by Watermark Publishing of Honolulu; the companion volume, Feng Shui for Hawai'i Gardens followed in 2012. In 2013, Clear self-published Feng Shui for Retail Stores, drawing on his five decades of retail experience, primarily in bookstores. In 2015, Watermark published Feng Shui for Love and Money, focused on the two main reasons why people first explore feng shui. Clear's books have been translated into four languages including Spanish, Japanese, German, and Portuguese.

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      Book preview

      Feng Shui for Retail Stores - Clear Englebert

      Copyright © 2013 Clear Englebert

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-8580-1 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-8581-8 (e)

      Front and back cover design by Rick Mears

      Photography and drawings by Steve Mann

      iUniverse rev. date: 5/22/2013

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Getting The Yang Of It

      Retail Yin/Yang Chart

      Cures: Real And Symbolic

      Chapter 1 Name & Number

      Name

      Numbers

      Street Address

      Telephone Number

      Chapter 2 Location & Exterior

      Parking

      Electromagnetic Fields (Emfs)

      Exterior Color

      Signage

      Front Door

      Windows & Awning

      Cleaning

      Awning

      Harsh Energy Nearby

      Feng Shui Mirrors

      Bagua Mirror

      Yang Robustness

      Chapter 3 Greeting Chi Energy

      Store Hours

      First Impression

      Ambience

      Sound

      Smell

      Color

      Temperature

      Lighting

      Employees

      Dress Code

      Hiring

      Customer Interaction

      Cashiers

      Words

      The Word No

      The Telephone

      Answering In Person

      On Hold

      Answering Machine

      Chapter 4 Money Changing Hands

      The Price

      The Product

      Advice To Buyers

      Chapter 5 Visual Presentation

      Signage

      Departments & Categories

      Point-Of-Sale

      Displays

      Design

      Display Areas

      Merchandise & Props

      Display Mirrors

      Endcaps

      Spinning Racks

      Windows

      Chapter 6 Layout

      Cash Wrap Areas

      Sales Floor

      Shape Of Sales Floor

      Floor Level Changes

      Free-Standing Support Poles

      Bulletin Boards & Event Posters

      Toilet Location

      Chapter 7 Offices

      Electromagnetic Fields

      Chapter 8 Retail Details

      Advertising

      Internet

      Ownership

      Security

      Retail Is Detail

      Shopping Baskets

      Lucky Cat Figurines

      Accounting & Taxes

      Chapter 9 You & Your Home

      Your Home

      Center Bathroom

      Wealth Corner Bathroom

      Central Spiral Staircase

      Empowered Position For Bed

      Missing Back Corners

      Stairs In Line With Front Door

      Steep Downward Slope Behind Home

      Triangular Lot

      Tree In Line With Front Door

      Risers On Front Stairs

      Recommended Reading

      Feng Shui Books

      Office Feng Shui

      Retail Books

      Glossary

      Sources

      Acknowledgements

      About The Author

      DEDICATION

      This book is dedicated to the owners and managers of independent, locally-owned stores and regional chain stores—real businesses with real storefronts and regular hours— people who are in it for the long haul.

      INTRODUCTION

      Retail success depends on having the right merchandise, priced right, and being sold by the right staff. It depends on being open in an accessible and noticeable location. These things attract chi. Chi in feng shui is energy, of any kind. Customers are a form of chi energy, coming into your store, giving you money, and leaving with a smile. Money is also a form of chi energy—one that feeds your store and keeps it going by paying bills.

      Life in the modern world is faster than life was a few generations ago. Make it easy for people to find your store open, and to find what they want to buy. Make it fast for the customer to complete their purchase and be on their busy way. Your competition is increasingly from the internet. An internet store is a tool, but a physical store is an experience—make it a happy one; therein lies your triumph over internet competition.

      GETTING THE YANG OF IT

      Yin and yang are ways of describing energy, just as negative and positive describe energy.

      A positive retail experience is yang. Yang is active and alive, while yin is inactive or dead. Retail stores are the most yang type of structures that people build. Mausoleums are the most yin. Homes and offices are between those two extremes, with offices being more yang than homes—but nothing is as yang as a happening store. Stores are yang because of the movement of many people and the transactions that happen. Stores are less affected by some problems that would be very weakening for a yin home. Their active vitality is a feng shui cure in and of itself—yang is stronger and yin is weaker—and that strength overcomes many feng shui concerns.

      The home should be more restful and the store should be more active. Don’t apply the advice in this book to your home, except for Chapter 9.

      Movement is very yang. A common retail term is turns, which implies activity and refers to the number of times an item sells over a given period of time. Turns can also refer to the number of times that items have sold in a particular location. How many times has the active energy of a customer reached onto that shelf, picked up an item, and then bought it? The more movement the better—it ultimately means more money. The word turns encapsulates the yang essence of retail stores. Every day should move the store forward. The yang-ness of retail calls for the effective, energetic use of every moment.

      A yin/yang chart that applies to retail stores is on the next page.

      RETAIL YIN/YANG CHART

      Some of the concepts that apply to retail are divided into yang and yin like this:

      CURES: REAL AND SYMBOLIC

      When you encounter a feng shui problem there are two kinds of cures: real and symbolic. Real cures are best for most retail situations because you know exactly what kind of chi energy you want to attract to your store—human beings. We really do know what attracts the eye—it’s been studied quite thoroughly. We also know the techniques that create satisfied customers. And attracting customers once is not good enough; you need to keep attracting them back again.

      Symbolic cures are used when there is a feng shui concern about the physical shape or layout of the store or the buildings around it and you cannot change the situation. Usually a small object, such as a mirror, crystal, or red dot is used to symbolically change a problematic situation. No magic, just a symbol, and you say out loud what the object is symbolizing. Use your own words and state your purpose when doing symbolic cures. Personally, I think you are addressing your angels and they need to hear your intention spoken out loud. You don’t have to say or think about those words again, but you do need to keep the object clean.

      CHAPTER 1 NAME & NUMBER

      NAME

      The name of the store is important to your store’s success because it plays a very yang role. The name is the first thing that many people will hear or read before they have physically come into your store. Being first is a yang quality.

      The store’s name should be two to four syllables. Five syllables is sometimes okay, but the more than five is not a good idea. Years ago I went into a restaurant in San Francisco and had a wonderful meal. I told the owner (who was also the waiter) that he should change the name of his restaurant from Org Vegan to something catchier. He asked if I had a suggestion and I said, Raw. That enterprising young man, Juliano, went on to name his very successful restaurant and book Raw. I seldom recommend that retail stores use a one-syllable name, partly because it can sound confusing over the telephone. (The energy of a restaurant is quite different from the energy of a store and different feng shui rules apply.) A one-syllable name is too yang for most retail stores. It’s best to have at least two syllables—it’s more welcoming and generally helps to clarify what your store is about. Some part of the name of the store should explain what kind of merchandise you carry. Questionability is a yin characteristic as compared to clarity, which is more yang.

      If a catchy name doesn’t easily come to mind, I recommend POP: Stand Out in Any Crowd by Sam Horn. She addresses the issue of business names in great detail. The perfect name for your store will probably come to mind while you’re reading POP. See Recommended Reading.

      If the name of the business is two words, it will sound more harmonious and lyrical if one of the words has an odd number of syllables and the other word has an even number of syllables. (This is also true for people’s names.) If you make the name of your store a joy to say, people are primed to love it.

      Don’t choose a name that is:

      •   difficult to pronounce

      •   confusing

      •   spelled uniquely.

      Beware that some names are commonly spelled differently, such as sun and son. Avoid all possibilities of confusion and you will have maximized opportunities for chi energy (customers and their money) to find your store.

      There should be only one name for the business. It amazes me that I should have to state something so basic, but I’ve been to businesses that had signs in front with more than one business name. That’s horrible—it’s confusing and turns people off. You’ll never know how many people it turns off because they won’t come into your shop in the first place.

      It’s best to avoid the arcane in retail. Don’t use Shoppe, or Olde. Don’t have Ltd. at the end of your store’s name, as if you expect people to say the word limited, which I hope you don’t because to say that is limiting to your store’s success. Don’t have the amateurish word Enterprises as the last word of the store name—it adds plenty of syllables but they aren’t clarifying anything. Plain and simple is yang, and that’s what’s best in retail. You have to go out of your way to be arcane, and the result is usually too cutesy.

      Unless you own the real estate, don’t name your store after its street location. What if Elm Street Emporium loses its lease and has to move to Oak Street? You can’t predict the future, so don’t limit possibilities by imagining that your store can only exist at its current location. However, if you own the property, you (in a sense) own part of the street, and promoting the recognition of your street’s name is often to your advantage.

      It’s a great advantage to have a store name that evokes comforting, familiar, or pleasant memories for the

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