How to Choose the Best Paint Colors for a Retail Store

Steps on Choosing Retail Store Colors

The best colors for retail sales aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. The best color for retail store painting depends on the unique business, goals, and atmosphere you’re looking to provide customers. You likely spend lots of time branding and carefully selecting what you feature in stores, so why not take the same approach when deciding on retail store painting selections?

To help you find the right shade for your store, here are the steps to take.

What’s Your Industry?

The first step to selecting the best colors for a retail showroom is to focus on your specific industry. Based on the type of products you sell and the mood associated with them, you will likely be led to a particular color palette, and it just takes a little attention. 

Let’s take a clothing store for children, for example. Likely, the clothes you feature offer light, bright, and pastel colors, and your boutique paint colors can match that aesthetic. However, if you’re setting up a new workout facility, brighter, bolder colors to energize customers are the way to go. And both of these options will be very different from a medical facility’s painting scheme, which often relies on reds, greens, and blues. 

Do you have a store that sells a variety of products? No problem, there’s a color scheme for that too. We recommend segmenting your store with different colors to match your products. However, if you’re not interested in color play, opt for a neutral color that lets the products speak for themselves. 

Learn Color Psychology

Color psychology is also important. The simplest way to describe this effect is to compare red and green to traffic lights. To many people, red is a negative color that indicates “stop” or “no.” In the same vein, green is often considered a more positive color that means “go” or “yes.”

The principle here is important, but the color red is much more interesting in a retail environment…and we’ll talk about that later in this piece.

Being surrounded by a certain color may dramatically change a person’s mood. Darker, warmer colors encourage people to relax and be cozy, while bold and vibrant colors may indicate to people that they should be active.

The more passive and relaxing a color, the less likely a customer is to take action. The bolder and more positive color, the more likely that customers may consider making a purchase or browsing for longer.

You can use the same effect in staff areas, too, by painting break rooms in more relaxing colors and offices in brighter colors that lift workers’ moods.

Think About Brand

Don’t forget your branding! Most businesses will have already spent a great deal of time choosing colors that look good and embody their vision, and if you’ve already invested time in finding a color that fits your brand, then that same color is likely a good option for your store or other commercial building.

This is important when you’re thinking of store color ideas for both your interior and your exterior. Pick the main color from your branding materials or logo and then choose some other complementary to go with it.

When people see the colors you choose, make them think of your brand!