Multi-Unit Retail Design: Consistent Brand Experience Across Locations

Opening a second retail location is a very different challenge than opening the first. The first store is an experiment in identity. Every material choice, every fixture, every spatial decision is being made for the first time. By the second location, you are no longer inventing the brand experience. You are translating it, and translation is where most multi-location retailers lose coherence.

At KINN Studios, we have worked with retail brands scaling across Alberta, including a multi-location rollout spanning more than eleven stores for Bud Mart Cannabis. The lessons from that process are transferable to any Calgary business expanding beyond a single storefront. What follows is a framework for maintaining design consistency without sacrificing the local character that makes each location feel like more than a franchise template.

The Design System Approach

The most effective multi-location retailers do not design individual stores. They design systems. A retail design system is a defined vocabulary of materials, finishes, fixture types, lighting strategies, signage standards, and spatial principles that can be applied across locations of varying sizes and configurations. It is the difference between handing a contractor a set of drawings for one specific room, and handing them a language they can speak in any room.

For Bud Mart, this meant establishing a core palette of warm wood tones, specific display cabinet profiles, and a consistent approach to lighting that could be adapted whether the location was a 900-square-foot unit in a strip mall or a 2,400-square-foot corner retail space. The system defined what was non-negotiable (material finishes, signage hierarchy, the customer journey from entry to point of sale) and what was flexible (layout configuration, feature wall treatments, locally responsive design elements).

3D Modelling as a Scalability Tool

One of the most critical steps in a multi-location rollout is creating detailed 3D renderings for each new location before construction begins. We model every new space in three dimensions, testing how the design system adapts to different floor plates, ceiling heights, column placements, and entry points. This process catches spatial conflicts early, long before they become expensive on-site problems.

3D modelling also serves as a communication tool between the design studio, the client, and the build team. When a general contractor in Airdrie and a millwork shop in Calgary are both working from the same rendered views, the margin for interpretation narrows considerably. For a brand opening multiple locations in a compressed timeline, this precision eliminates the costly back-and-forth that derails schedules.

Fixed Elements vs. Flexible Elements

Every multi-location design system needs a clear hierarchy of fixed and flexible elements. Fixed elements are the non-negotiable components that a customer should recognize immediately upon entering any location: the signage system, the primary material palette, the display fixture design, and the lighting temperature. These are the elements that create brand recognition at a subconscious level.

Flexible elements are where each location can respond to its specific context. A corner unit with large windows will have a different relationship to natural light than an interior mall space. A location in a heritage building may have existing architectural features worth celebrating rather than concealing. A store in a neighbourhood with a strong local identity might incorporate subtle design references that a suburban location would not.

The discipline is in knowing which category each element belongs to, and resisting the temptation to reclassify fixed elements as flexible when budget or timeline pressures emerge. This is where many expanding brands lose their way. One location compromises on the flooring material. Another substitutes a different light fixture. Within four or five stores, the accumulated compromises have eroded the system beyond recognition.

Material Specifications and Vendor Relationships

A design system is only as reliable as its supply chain. For a multi-location rollout in Alberta, this means specifying materials that are consistently available through regional suppliers, establishing relationships with fabricators who can reproduce custom elements at consistent quality, and maintaining a detailed specification document that removes ambiguity from the procurement process.

We maintain specification binders for our multi-location clients that include exact product codes, acceptable substitutions (and unacceptable ones), installation standards, and quality benchmarks. When a new location is being built out by a different general contractor than the previous one, this documentation ensures continuity. The design intent does not live in any single tradesperson's memory. It lives in the system.

The Customer Journey Across Locations

Ultimately, multi-location design consistency is measured not by material samples and finish schedules, but by the customer's experience of moving between locations. A customer who visits one store and then walks into another in a different part of the city should feel an immediate sense of recognition. Not identical repetition, but a coherent language. The same spatial confidence. The same quality of light. The same intuitive understanding of where to go and what to do.

This is the real work of multi-unit retail design, and it is why the process benefits from a single design studio guiding the rollout from concept through execution. Fragmented design responsibility across multiple firms, even talented ones, almost always produces fragmented results.

If you are planning a multi-location expansion in Calgary or across Alberta, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your rollout strategy. You can explore our approach to commercial interior design and see how we have applied these principles in our portfolio.