Best Low-Cost Remodel: Love’s Travel Stop

Best Low-Cost Remodel
Winner: Love’s Travel Stop, Middletown, Pa.
Designer: DAS Companies Inc.

Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores partnered with design firm DAS Companies Inc. to reimagine how consumers shop for mobile electronics at highway travel stops. Together, they created the MOBILE 2 GO zone, in which they remodeled the apparel department into a sensory-charged, convenient, mobile electronics shopping experience.

The MOBILE 2 GO zone features:

• A host of interactive displays that serve as “virtual salespeople”
• Electronic Engagement Center
• Sound Station
• TV Tower display
• Garmin vivofit display

The interactive merchandising is housed in a maple-laminate, slatwall-anchored bookcase system. Products are organized by category within the bookcases and in coordinating H-island displays placed on a diagonal to encourage customer entry.

The remodel objective was to drive incremental Love’s comp store sales, while establishing Love’s as the destination for mobile electronics on America’s highways. Despite executional challenges in the remodeling process, within 90 days and five store remodels, Love’s saw a double-digit sales increase, shopper traffic increase, positive customer feedback and a strong Love’s store operations reception, according to the contest entry.

As a result, Love’s expanded the MOBILE 2 GO zone rollout to 100 new and remodeled stores.