Learn how an architectural survey benefits your brand, customers, and retail stores
A global retail brand is preparing to launch its flagship store on Fifth Avenue. The design team envisions a sleek, open-concept layout with custom fixtures, immersive lighting, and seamless checkout stations.
The problem? The initial measurements were off—columns weren’t accounted for, ceiling heights varied, and electrical outlets weren’t in the expected locations.
This retail brand made a critical mistake in relying on outdated architectural survey drawings.
And now this decision is hurting the brand from every angle—time, money, customer loyalty, social media backlash, marketing budget, and construction cost overruns.
Without an accurate architectural survey, the store’s fixtures don’t fit, display units block customer flow, and last-minute adjustments keep delaying the opening date—costing thousands in delays and lost sales.
This scenario plays out more often than it should. Precise space planning, backed by reliable retail survey data, ensures that retail installations align perfectly with the physical space.
From shelving placements to HVAC positioning, every element depends on accurate site information. An architectural survey isn’t just a box to check—it’s the foundation for a successful retail experience.
Hint: you don’t want to be like this global retail brand.
Retail surveys, such as architectural or as-built surveys are not a nice-to-have or something to do with extra budget, they are an essential first step for any retail store opening, renovation, refurbishment, or design update.
How do you know if your custom display cases will fit if you don’t have accurate measurements? How will you plan customer flow to and from the changerooms when you don’t know the dimensions of your retail store?
Yes, these seem like obvious and over-simplified questions, but trust us when we tell you, so many retail store owners and brands overlook the basics when it comes to knowing their stores and what they really look like.
Understanding Surveys and Data Collection
Take a moment and think about your kitchen. How many cupboards are in your kitchen? How many shelves are there in each cupboard?
Not easy is it? And this is a part of your house you’re in multiple times a day. Now, think about your retail stores.
How well can you remember the small details, such as the distance from the entrance to the check-out counter, the number of windows, the ceiling height or the location of the changerooms and emergency exit?
This is exactly why retail surveys and the data we collect with them are the building blocks for retail store design and installation. There should be zero guesswork when making decisions about your retail spaces.
- Ceiling heights
- Number, dimensions, and precise locations of each window
- Baseboard heights
- Signage location and types
- Type and number of overhead lights
- Dimensions of mirrors in changerooms
- Depth of glass display tables
- Entrance width
- Checkout counter depth and height
- Storage room dimensions and fixture details
This is just a partial list of the data about your stores you need to know and have easily accessible. We collect this data and more using a range of retail survey types including:
- Architectural or As-Built Surveys: document the physical layout, dimensions, and structural elements of a space to ensure accuracy in planning, design, and construction.
- Matterport Surveys: an interactive digital walkthrough of your retail stores, allowing you to virtually explore and see a location on your computer, phone, or tablet without being physically present.
- Field and Site Audits: are non-drawing data collections and checklists of information about your retail space such as store layout details, product placement, visual merchandising, and store branding compliance.
- Interior Surveys: a precise measurement and documentation of the internal layout, including walls, ceilings, fixtures, and mechanical systems, to support space planning, renovations, and retail installations.
- Fixture Verification Surveys: confirm the presence and condition of fixtures in your retail space, ensuring all fixtures and millwork are installed, functioning, and maintained as planned.
- Asset Tracking Surveys: involve cataloging and verifying the location and condition of assets within your retail store, helping you maintain accurate records and counts of items such as number of chairs, types of signage, promotional materials, or number of POS units.
- Space Planning Surveys: help you understand and analyze how retail fixtures, layout, and visual merchandising can be used to optimize your space for efficiency, customer experience, and functionality.
- Compliance and Marketing Surveys: verify that your retail spaces comply with any variable you want to measure, such as the use of marketing and promotional materials, safety compliance, building code adherence, accessibility standards, and more.
Regardless of the type of retail survey you need, it all comes down to accurate data and using this to fully and completely see and understand your retail space. Remember, knowledge is power and data drives verifiable knowledge.
What is an Architectural Retail Survey?
An architectural survey uses detailed drawings of precise measurements and layouts of the interior and exterior of a retail space, serving as the foundation for design and planning.
Typically used before renovations, new installations, or taking over an existing store, architectural or as-built surveys ensure accurate documentation of all aspects of the space.
These detailed drawings guide space planning, ensuring that fixtures, displays, signage, and millwork are properly placed to optimize customer flow and maximize sales.
For example, for Michael Kors, we conducted an architectural survey of every shop-in-shop location in its portfolio before they installed the new fixture package. Using laser tape measures and digital photography, we gave the store planning team an up to date and accurate visual document detailing the precise measurements and layout of their retail location. This information helped the brand manage a multi-unit renovation, ensuring cost and operational efficiency and design and installation symmetry.
An architectural retail survey can include:
- Architectural survey drawings of the interior and exterior dimensions, layout, and structure of spaces and buildings.
- Laser scan surveys using high-definition LIDAR technology to create 3D models documenting layouts and features of retail interiors and exteriors.
- AutoCAD, Revit, or SketchUp drawings depending on your needs, we use on or more of these tools to create 3D models of your space.
- Plano-grams to help you visually plan and optimize product placement on shelves, displays, and within your store layout.
Whether you have one location or a global installation of retail stores, an architectural survey is core to making smart decisions that reduce your total cost of ownership.
When you see what you have, you can make informed decisions about space planning and layout, future-proofing and compliance, and maintenance, operational, and property management decisions.
An architectural survey is more than a drawing of your retail space; it helps reduce risk, eliminate cost overruns and unnecessary spending, improve customer engagement and experience, and enable long-term success and profitability.
Key Components of a Retail Architectural Survey
The key components of a retail architectural survey include these interior and exterior details and measurements:
- Floor plans and layouts
- Precise measurements of walls, doors and entrances, windows, fixtures, millwork, ceiling heights, and all structural elements
- Lighting and electrical system placement and dimensions
- Mechanical infrastructure including HVAC, plumbing, and fire prevention details
- Building façade details based on the type of retail space, for example free-standing brick-and-mortar or location in a mall or multi-unit building
- Locations and dimensions of all interior and exterior signs, graphics, and displays
- Entrance and exit configurations including emergency exits and staff entrances
- Exterior landscape and topography details including sidewalks, parking, and greenery
Trust us when we say there is no such thing as too much data when it comes to your retail surveys and truly seeing your retail spaces.
Why A Great Retail Experience Starts With An Architectural Survey
We have all experienced this: walking into a retail store that is stuffed with products, narrow aisles, an impossible-to-find checkout area, and too small changerooms. You cannot wait to get out of this store, forgetting the reasons why you walked in and what you wanted to buy.
We see this all the time—retail brands and store owners forgetting that a positive customer experience and strong sales hinge on a well thought-out, planned, and designed store.
You cannot do this with a few photos taken on your mobile phone or drawings dating back to the original construction or a renovation done 10 years ago.
Delivering a great retail experience starts with an up-to-date and professional architectural survey.
An architectural survey drives these benefits to your brand, customers, and retail stores:
- Informed Decision-Making: gain clarity and confidence about retail design and installation, visual merchandising, and store layout. Rely on your architectural drawings and details for strategic decisions and planning for store-in-store pop-ups, seasonal product roll-outs, holiday displays, and more.
- Cost Savings and Efficiency: architectural surveys save you money by enabling accurate budgeting, preventing costly design and construction mistakes, optimizing space utilization, identifying necessary upgrades early, and ensuring code compliance. Know your retail project will not be delayed by inaccurate or old drawings and models.
- Improved Store Layout and Flow: it needs to be easy for your customers to enter, browse, and shop in your retail store. Architectural drawings and models give you and your retail design and installation team the information required to create an efficient and supportive store layout, optimized product placement and visibility, and a welcoming and comfortable store experience.
- Technology Integration: self-service kiosks, interactive touchscreens, or smart mirrors cannot simply be placed anywhere in your store. An architectural survey gives you important structural details such as the location of electrical outlets, cable routing and management issues, wall load capacity, floor space and accessibility concerns, network connectivity options, and more.
- Brand and Design Consistency: people like consistency, comfort, and reliability when we shop. This is why global brands and retailers maintain a similar retail design and flow across all locations. An architectural survey helps you maintain a consistent brand image across different store locations while identifying unique design aspects that can be highlighted or standardized. These drawings and models can also help you determine if a potential retail space is the right fit for your brand, saving you time, money, and resources in trying to make your brand and retail design fit in an unsuitable location.
- Retail Planning, Design, Installation, and Maintenance: the goodness is in the details, and this is what you get with accurate drawings and models. Your architectural survey is the foundation on which a successful retail store is built—from choosing the right fixtures and millwork, window displays and graphic signage through to store maintenance and warehousing—everything circles back to knowing what your store really looks like.
Do You Need An Architectural Retail Survey? Answer These 9 Questions
Before investing in a new retail space or planning renovations, you must understand the physical and structural details that could impact your store’s layout, design, and customer experience.
Answer these 9 questions to determine if you need an architectural retail survey:
- Do we have accurate and up-to-date floor plans and measurements for all of our retail spaces?
- Do we have recent drawings and models of what our stores look like today?
- Are we confident there haven’t been undocumented changes to this retail location?
- What types of changes are we planning? Is this a refurbishment, new product roll-out, new retail installation, a global redesign of all stores, etc.?
- Do we have 3D models and visuals of every store, including fixture, lighting, walls, ceilings, window, and millwork details?
- What do we need to know about mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC operations?
- What are we hearing from store owners and managers about product visibility, customer flow and experience, foot traffic, and store layout?
- Do we have updated drawings and models for the retail spaces we are considering buying or taking over? Do we know what we’re getting into with these potential new locations?
- How easy is it for us to access the architectural drawings and models for every store in our portfolio? Is there a searchable database or extranet we can use to see inside every store?
The location of walls, electrical outlets, the door, windows, ceiling height, plumbing, etc. may seem like small details when you’re thinking about holiday window displays or a new product launch—trust us when we tell you great retail design starts with the small details.
The first step in any successful retail design and installation is the architectural survey. Great retail design and installation do not come from guesswork or imagination—it relies on data and being able to see a space to understand it fully and completely.
At Dynamic, our unique combination of IN-HOUSE offerings makes us your single source provider for all your retail survey, design, planning, installation, and construction needs. No one understands retail installation better than we do.
Contact us to learn how we handle any aspect of your business–from an individual retail store to a global roll out. We are here for you.