For a dispensary that sits near the smaller end of the size scale, Puffin packs an enormous visual punch. Outfitted in bright colors, light wood, and lots of glass and sporting an adorable stylized puffin logo, the 2,500-square-foot shop near Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is the sort of place that beckons with a feel-good vibe.
“It’s a fun store,” said Georgia Peterman, business development representative for Display Dispensary, which designed the store’s floor plan and manufactured the fixtures. “You walk in and want to look around to discover all the cute things as you’re shopping.”
For Peterman and her colleague Jeff Sunga, outfitting smaller spaces poses unique challenges. Chief among them is a “need to cut the visual noise and make sure the design relates quickly and immediately while maintaining the elegance, elevation, and overall aesthetic of the brand,” Sunga said. Fortunately, Puffin’s owners “were decisive. They knew what they wanted and had a vision, so it was just a matter of translating that into the design.”
To balance the vivid color palette, the Display Dispensary team employed white display cases and storage cabinets. Both fade into the background, making the space seem larger and providing a neutral backdrop against which products pop. The cash stands and countertops were finished with raw-oak laminate for durability. All the fixtures were drawn from the Dispensary123 collection, then custom-fitted to ensure seamless integration.
To ensure customers weren’t overwhelmed by what might have been visual cacophony created by a surprisingly robust merchandise selection, Sunga and Peterman also used their backgrounds in fashion and retail design to create a merchandising plan for the store. The plan not only enhances the space’s “visual story” but also gives each square inch of visual space a dollar value.
You walk in and want to look around to discover all the cute things as you’re shopping.
“Some cases have risers inside,” Peterman said. As part of the firm’s consultation with clients, “we find out what kind of items they’re putting in cases and use our accessories to accentuate whatever they’re displaying.”
According to Sunga, “We always make sure items and brands are highlighted and it’s not just one big noisy mass of product. We like definitive lines and a story within each brand or section. Otherwise, when you have so many SKUs, it all just becomes too much for the consumer to shop.”
For the future, Display Dispensary’s pre-engineered fixtures and custom touches provide Puffin with a versatile canvas staff can redecorate and repurpose to suit the market’s evolving needs.
“It’s kind of like your favorite pair of red shoes,” Peterman said. “You can dress them up or down for different vibes.”
Built out in thirty days, Puffin opened to an eager market of college students and soccer moms. Already, according to business-news platform ROI-NJ, the shop “has amassed a huge local following.”
Sunga attributed that to the store’s atmosphere. “It’s all about the sensation you get when you walk in,” he said.
Puffin
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Display Dispensary
displaydispensary.com | (877) 734-7752
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