By combining a contemporary retail interior design for essential grocery shopping and impulse purchases, both the oil companies and the grocery retailers win on two fronts, with footfall and profitability.

When the management team of the Western Oil Group(WOG), based in Kyiv Ukraine, appointed us for our design and branding services. They wanted their retail stores on WOG petrol forecourts to increase customer appeal, footfall and profitability. We were asked to create a customer-focused in-store experience, which involved creating the brand environment, interior design, format planning and communication suites for three store formats in central Kyiv.

The pay-at-the-pump service was being introduced by WOG management. The aim was to enable motorists to refuel without the need to go inside to pay. This reduces queuing time at the till, making the in-store experience quicker for those who want to shop for groceries, confectionery, drinks, and alcohol, etc.

Following our briefing from WOG management, we visited competitor brands to review their city centre convenience stores.

On a visit to Baku, in Azerbaijan, we visited Socar petrol forecourts, the number one petrol filling station brand in the region. We were pleased to see a contemporary retail interior design with Chefs preparing meals alongside a grocery retail offer of fresh produce, bread, bread meat, drinks, and alcohol.

With the benchmarking phase complete, we set about developing concept ideas that covered a spectrum of food retail design solutions, from the conservative to the progressive. During the project, we designed the brand environment, detailed the format planning of three prototype stores, and developed merchandising systems display concepts. We refined the designs so that they could be implemented as part of the WOG “brand manual” in Ukraine.

Our work featured interior & exterior retail store design. Branding, signage, and point of sale communications material, lighting systems, and merchandising systems solutions. All solutions aimed at generating higher footfall and profitability.

We at Campbell Rigg follow grocery retail innovations closely and always look for a new brand and interior design concepts. We often travel to Europe to benchmark the best in class retailers.

There has been a trend over the last two decades for the traditional oil companies to relinquish their grip on the retail aspect of their petrol filling stations, focusing on franchising the forecourt operation to independent retailers and the shop offer to the well-known grocery brands. At the same time, supermarket retailers have taken a significant segment of the market by offering cheap fuel to Hypermarket and supermarket customers.

Our internal process of renewal, allows us to continually benchmark and write about the best in class branding and design in many market sectors across the globe.

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