Chapter 1 Under the Guidance

Under Liang Qingfan's lead, the group arrived at the entrance on the first floor of Jinsheng Plaza, specifically the recessed corner of the square, which was also directly beneath the main body of the Tenda New Experience Store.

The mall had four floors, each estimated to be about 5.5 meters high, making the entire building just under 24 meters.

Building codes defined structures exceeding 24 meters as high-rises, leading to increased requirements for fire safety and other aspects, significantly boosting the mall's construction costs, which was deemed uneconomical.

Maximizing floor height while minimizing the number of floors was intended to prevent customers from having to climb stairs frequently, thus improving their shopping experience.

Lower ceilings tend to create a sense of oppression, while higher ceilings make the space feel more open, improving customers' moods and encouraging spending.

Frequent stair climbing can exhaust customers' patience; most would rather walk a few extra steps on the same floor than climb to the fifth or sixth floor.

Jinsheng Plaza, being a relatively new mall, had clearly taken these factors into full consideration during its design, enhancing the customer's shopping experience through attention to detail.

Upon entering the first floor, they were greeted by a vast atrium space extending from the ground floor to the top, resembling an indoor plaza with a striking modern sculpture.

The overall impression of the mall was one of modernity and grandeur.

From the atrium, they could directly access the Tenda Experience Store on the second floor via an escalator.

From the initial design phase, this semi-circular area with its extensive glass curtain walls was intended to be the mall's core location, influencing many design choices, including the placement of escalators, which prioritized this area.

Arriving on the second floor, Liang Qingfan raised his hand, introducing the area: "President Pei, from here to the top floor, it's all part of the Tenda Experience Store. Of course, only in this direction behind me."

"It has three floors in total, divided into six zones according to your previous instructions."

"Each floor has a distinction between a 'standard zone' and a 'core zone.' The core zone is essentially the area with the semi-circular glass curtain walls. This area has excellent natural light and is spacious and bright. The shops around it, inside the mall, serve as the standard zones."

"This way, the standard and core zones of the three floors can be combined to meet your previous request, dividing them into six distinct functional zones."

"The core zone on the second floor is the digital products area, and the standard zone is the game experience area."

"The core zone on the third floor is the merchandise area, and the standard zone is the home living area."

"The core zone on the top floor is the dining area, and the standard zone is the movie viewing area."

Liang Qingfan patiently explained as he led the three of them around.

The zoning was clearly well thought out.

There are certain unspoken rules for floor allocation in malls. The most important being: essential products are placed on the upper floors, while impulse-buy, high-profit products are placed on the lower floors.

For example, dining and home appliance products are typically located on the upper floors, while cosmetics and jewelry are usually on the ground floor.

This is because foot traffic decreases with each floor.

Consumer demand for home appliance products is fixed; they generally only visit when they have a need and won't suddenly decide to buy a refrigerator while strolling around. So, even if placed on the upper floors, consumers will still go to see them.

The same logic applies to dining; people need to eat when they get tired of shopping, and they can't just decide not to eat on a whim.

Placing these on the upper floors doesn't diminish customers' desire to spend and encourages them to browse more floors, directing foot traffic upwards.

Cosmetics, jewelry, and similar items are often purchased on impulse and have relatively high profit margins, so they are placed on the lower floors, allowing them to bear higher rent and generate substantial profits through large foot traffic.

Liang Qingfan's plan clearly followed this pattern.

The dining area was placed on the top floor, so customers could grab a meal after browsing from the bottom up. Digital products and the game experience area were placed on the lower floors to take full advantage of foot traffic and increase sales.

As for the difference between the "standard zone" and the "core zone," it mainly lies in the environment.

The core zone has huge glass curtain walls, excellent natural light, is spacious, bright, and has an open view. The entire area isn't segmented but is highly integrated.

Many digital product stores use a lot of glass design and have high ceilings to create a high-end atmosphere for consumers and enhance their shopping experience.

Therefore, the digital products area selling mobile phones and other digital devices, the merchandise area displaying furniture and smart home appliances, and the dining area where consumers eat all require a high-quality environment and were chosen to be placed in the core zone surrounded by the semi-circular glass curtain walls.

The standard zone has much poorer natural light, and there are some partitions between areas, so it's not a single integrated space.

This is because the game experience area, home living area, and movie viewing area don't require high levels of lighting, and even prefer darker conditions.

Whether experiencing games or watching movies, a relatively dark environment is needed.

The home living area is not strictly a sales area, but simulates the scenario of furniture placed in a home. Some scenarios even showcase a cozy environment for staying at home in the living room at night.

Moreover, the movie viewing area, game experience area, and home living area can be divided into several different showrooms to display different styles and content, requiring them to be separated.

So these were all placed in the standard zone.

In addition to that, there is some connection between the standard zone and core zone on each floor.

For example, on the second floor, the digital products area and the game experience area are placed together, so players can directly go to the digital products area to buy the equipment they like after experiencing games and the latest gaming devices.

The same applies to the home living area and the merchandise area on the third floor.

On the fourth floor, the dining area and the movie viewing area together form a comfortable rest area, where customers can eat, have a drink, or sit down and watch a movie when they are tired.

The core zone on each floor is approximately 700 square meters, totaling about 2100 square meters across the three floors; while the standard zone on each floor ranges from 1000 to 1300 square meters, totaling approximately 3600 square meters.

In addition, there are several shops on the first floor, totaling over 1200 square meters, which were also rented to Tenda.

This was initially arranged by the mall for Liang Qingfan to reach the desired square footage, forcibly making it 7,000 square meters.

Conveniently, these shops on the first floor can be used as display areas for Moyu Internet Cafe, Nifeng Logistics, and other physical businesses. Profit isn't the primary goal; the main purpose is to showcase them.

In short, Liang Qingfan's arrangement was quite scientific.

Currently, the overall renovation has been completed. The floors and walls are spotless, and the first batch of furniture and equipment, including the long tables and shelves in the digital products area, have already been delivered.

With just a few more days of preparation, the entire experience store will be open to the public.

The reason for the rapid progress is that the mall was originally designed by a well-known architect, who put a lot of thought into the window area with the glass curtain walls and revised it several times. Therefore, Liang Qingfan didn't need to make major changes, only minor adjustments to some details.

This saved Liang Qingfan a lot of time and was a key reason why he ultimately decided to locate the experience store here.

The first stop was the standard zone on the second floor, the game experience area.

According to the plan, computers, mobile phones, televisions, smart fitness clothes racks, VR glasses, and other equipment will be placed here for players to experience. However, these items haven't arrived yet, so it's hard to imagine what these areas will look like when they officially open.

Further in is the core zone on this floor, the digital products area.

As core zones, the digital products area, merchandise area, and dining area have extremely similar decorating styles, with only slight differences in layout.

Liang Qingfan went to the glass curtain wall, where he could clearly see the Yuanda Tiandi across the street, with a very open view.

"Buildings with glass curtain wall designs are not uncommon, but the ultimate aesthetic effect depends on the details."

"The size, color, reflectivity, transparency, structural system, frame material dimensions, connection method... every detail can cause the final effect to deviate significantly from the expected result."

"The first time I saw this glass curtain wall, I could tell that the designer put a lot of effort into the selection of materials and the design. The cost of the entire glass curtain wall must be extremely high, which is why I was drawn to this place."

"And the ultimate effect is that whether you look from the outside in or from the inside out, it gives people a feeling of transparency, brightness, and purity. It has both a modern and minimalist feel, as well as a sense of Zen beauty."

"In addition, I made a slight modification to the original ceiling. The original ceiling was actually very good, but the lights were too small. I specifically purchased large-area embedded frosted white lights, plus deep black metal lines as embellishments, to ensure no blind spots in the store's lighting coverage, and to be bright but not dazzling at night."

Although the entire experience store wasn't completely furnished yet, the content that Liang Qingfan introduced already conveyed a sense of meticulous detail.

Zhuang Dong was almost overwhelmed. Although he couldn't fully understand what Liang Qingfan meant, he could still sense the emphatic "awesome."

Tian Mo, on the other hand, was a little worried.

Because this experience store was just too good!

It was located in the most prosperous business district of Jingzhou, occupied such a large area, and the details inside were crafted by first-class architects. Even the lighting was full of sincerity.

It could be said that this experience store was comparable to the stores of many international leading technology companies and even surpassed them in many aspects!

Compared to the real estate agency store where he had worked before, it was simply worlds apart.

And when he thought that he was about to become the store manager of such a large store, Tian Mo felt instinctively panicked in addition to being excited because he had no idea if he could handle it.

What if his work had any flaws? Wouldn't that be letting down President Pei's expectations and wasting Architect Liang's efforts?