5 WAYS ADDING AN AWNING CAN ENHANCE YOUR COMMERCIAL SPACE AS YOU REOPEN
Getting your business back up and running after a year of closures or limited sales may require a bit more than simply reopening your doors. If your restaurant, shop, or other business needs a fresh and functional touch to help rebuild interest in your brand as you reopen, a colorful and aesthetically-pleasing awning may be the perfect solution. Here are five reasons adding an awning to your reopening plans can be a strategic business move!
Provide Interior and Exterior Value for Your Business
If you're like most business owners or managers, you're probably looking for ways to minimize spending without negatively affecting your business or your customers' experience, especially if closures have kept you from bringing in much money over the last year. Adding an awning to your building can help lower your energy costs and prevent UV damage to the interior of your building by minimizing the amount of sunlight and heat that enter your windows, which can be especially cost-effective if you live in an area that is constantly hot and sunny. The money you save in these areas can then be used for other aspects of your business that are in greater need in order to effectively open, and it can also go toward making improvements and expansions once business has stabilized.
Awnings can also provide exterior value by adding a fresh and colorful touch to a building that may otherwise be less attractive. Turning older buildings into modern, aesthetically-pleasing businesses can be challenging, but choosing the right outdoor decor can go a long way toward enhancing an older location and making it more appealing to your customers. Adding a neutral or brightly-colored awning that matches the theme of your business can help your building instantly take on a stylish new look, and giving your outdoor furniture a fresh coat of paint or adding some colorful flowers can be the perfect finishing touch.
Protect Your Customers From the Elements
Sun, rain, and snow can make your customers less likely to come to your business, especially if you primarily offer outdoor seating. Trying to enjoy a meal or treat in a drizzle or beating sunlight isn't much fun, and you don't want your customers to have a less-than-stellar experience at your business that could keep them from coming back in the future. Installing a permanent or retractable awning can be the perfect solution for keeping your business up and running on days when the elements aren't quite in your favor, especially if you live in an especially hot or rainy area or are planning to offer more outdoor service options than usual as your business opens up.
Rain, snow, and sunlight can also be hard on your outdoor furniture, patio, and outdoor decor. Although many of these items were likely designed to resist water damage and fading better than furniture and decor that were not intended to be outdoors, they are still not immune to damage from the elements over time. Keeping these items under an awning can protect them from the heaviest impacts of deep snow and constant sun exposure, which can help them last longer before needing to be replaced and keep them looking nicer to improve your customers' impressions of your business.
Boost Your Revenue by Increasing Your Customers
Having more space available for your customers to utilize naturally increases the number of people that can enjoy your restaurant, shop, or other business -- and spend money -- at a time, and smaller buildings are not always able to efficiently handle high levels of traffic during peak hours. Even if your building is typically an adequate size for your needs, current capacity restrictions in your community or state may keep the number of people that are allowed in your building at a time far below the number of customers you need to keep your business up and running.
Adding an awning to your building is a quick and relatively inexpensive way to increase your capacity while providing enough space for your customers to maintain a distance they are comfortable with. This strategy can increase your overall profit by as much as 65 percent, which can help you make back some of the money you might lose as a result of capacity restrictions and significantly increase your revenue in the future to grow your business. By making the most of the outdoor space you already have available instead of remodeling, you can increase the options that are available to your customers in a cost-effective way that benefits your business.
Increase Your Visibility
Signs can only get so large before they become an eyesore, and large, bright awnings provide another way to grab potential customers' attention. Choosing a unique color that aligns with the theme of your business can pique the interest of people who walk or drive by, and awnings naturally create a space for people to spend time outside your business to make it look popular. Certain types of awnings can also be printed on to create a simple but stylish form of advertisement to build interest in your business.
Build Ambiance
After a year of rarely going anywhere, many of your customers are going to be interested in seeking out the most unique places in town to visit first. Unless you live in a very small town, your potential customers can't go everywhere within your first month of reopening, and you'll want to create an extra reason for them to be interested in your restaurant, shop, or other business. Reopening in the spring or early summer means that many of your customers will be searching for ways to spend time outdoors, not just to choose something to eat or someplace to shop, and creating a covered outdoor space that is a safer option for spending time with others makes your business the perfect choice for enjoying the warmer weather while getting back out into the community.
At Canvas Craft, we offer durable and uniquely designed commercial awnings in a variety of sizes and colors to meet the needs of any business. Contact us today to explore everything our products have to offer or to receive an estimate for your custom awning!