Mi Arcus

Operating on a cumulative experience base of approximately 45 years, founder Gian Singh opened the first-ever Mi Arcus store in 2020, envisioning it as a brand that announces ‘India to the world’.

While the brand was founded on strong principles, the stores weren’t meeting the expectations that the founder had for branded touchpoints, and the hurdle was multifaceted. Mi Arcus had over 4,000 SKUs to work with, each requiring its own space on the shelf, and the distinction among product categories itself was blurred. This led to an increased dependence on sales staff.

The gaps in retail experience

When Mi Arcus approached D’Art Design to address the aforementioned concerns, D’Art wanted to conduct its own store audit campaign to understand, firsthand, the friction points that were affecting both experience and performance, and they are:

• Segmentation & Accessibility
  During the audit, we found that the age-wise segmentation was inconsistent across product categories, and some products had accessibility issues that affected sales potential.
• Navigation and Layout
  With a portfolio of 4000+ SKUs, the shelves were overcrowded, and the navigation cues between categories and through the store were lacking
• Brand Story Disconnect
  While the brand’s story was inspiring, it wasn’t translated into design, resulting in subpar visual storytelling. This made the store feel transactional, rather than the immersion that the brand intended.

Instead of a symptom-wise approach to address the above-mentioned challenges, we understood that the larger vision was to simplify choices, enable independent decision-making through effortless navigation, and immerse customers in the world of Mi Arcus through emotional cues.

Designing The Right Experience

A recurring theme was uncovered during the audit, which involved navigational and SKU categorization challenges. Thus, D’Art approached this challenge with a ‘Product-Family Approach’, which grouped all related items into a single category, and then used that principle to develop design-based interventions. This helped on two fronts:

We were able to put a clear distinction between categories, which helped in navigation.

Through the ‘Product-Family Approach’, we showed a group of related products, which enabled the cross-selling potential of the store.

Designing for Families

While decision-making was in the hands of parents, they were accompanied by their little ones of varying ages, and most of them had strollers. Thus, taking the average dimensions of a stroller into account, we designed optimized pathways, with mirrors and island units placed strategically, to further ensure smooth navigation and exploration. 

We targeted the children and their parents as the two key demographics, and designed in-store engagement items to keep both emotionally engaged. For children, we developed ‘child-engagement zones’ with playful mirrors, interactive walls, and experience rooms to engage them, which gave parents room to explore the store's offerings.

For parents, we used visual merchandising and storytelling solutions to keep them immersed. We developed custom signage and graphics, branded elements, and executed digital screen-based systems to strengthen the emotional quotient.

Value-Added Checkout

Furthermore, we reworked the cash counter to position it as another value-adding touchpoint by providing on-the-spot gift wrapping services.

Principle-Led Design

All of our efforts and design-based interventions weren’t just about the friction points found in the audit. Rather, we reimagined the store with the help of Mi Arcus’ founding principles, which were to keep care, empathy, and a relentless focus on customer comfort at the forefront.