At Raven, we’re spending a lot of time inside retail right now. Multiple clients. Different business models. But the same patterns, frustrations and missed opportunities.

And that’s why we’re talking about it.

Retail is one of (in theory) the clearest places to see how design directly impacts commercial performance: conversion rates, loyalty, repeat purchase, and lifetime value. When the experience works, it’s felt immediately on the bottom line. When it doesn’t, customers walk. Often quietly.

But despite that direct connection, too many retail design teams still find themselves stuck downstream, responding to requests, but rarely involved early enough to shape decisions.

And that’s the real gap we’re seeing.

The Retail Design Trap: Stuck in Execution

Retail is always moving. Promotions. Seasonal pushes. Campaigns. Category resets. Flash sales. The operational machine is constant, and design often gets pulled into the slipstream as a delivery function. Assets. Edits. Last-minute amends before the trade deadline.

• We repeatedly see design teams fall into:

• Being pulled in after decisions are made

• Prioritising fast shipping over upstream problem-solving

• Little visibility into commercial or customer priorities

• A reactive loop of incremental work, rather than meaningful design

• Burnout from constantly firefighting short-term priorities

And we hear it directly from the teams themselves.

One of our clients recently surfaced this through an internal engagement survey. Here’s how their designers described the day-to-day reality:

• “Business opportunities are the priority over customer pains.”

• “We identify opportunity areas, but there’s limited opportunity to influence leadership.”

• “We are hindered by red tape, pace of delivery, conflicting and ever-changing priorities.”

• “The wrong kind of work is being worked on.”

It’s not about capability. It’s not about motivation. It’s about influence and the opportunity that’s lost when design is positioned as a service function rather than a strategic partner.

The Cost of Late-Stage Design Involvement

When design is brought in late, it’s not just creative potential being wasted; it’s commercial performance:

• Rework costs: Fixing late-stage issues is always more expensive than designing upstream.

• Lost insight: Designers bring a proximity to customer experience that often gets missed in pure business conversations.

• Missed opportunity: Design can shape the commercial conversation, but only if they’re part of it early.

In a sector where margins are tight and loyalty is fragile, these gaps carry real cost.

Why Early Involvement Matters

When design has a seat at the table early, you unlock:

1. Better business decisions grounded in real customer insight.

2. Proactive problem-solving rather than endless reactive iterations.

3. Compounding capability where design naturally elevates the quality of broader decision-making across the business.

Building Influence Takes Work (And That’s Where We Start)

We’re not selling silver bullets here because you don’t transform a design function overnight. Influence isn’t a switch, it’s built over time through clearer roles, stronger voices, aligned leadership, and sharper commercial fluency.

And that’s the work we help clients set in motion.

The Raven Approach: The Design Influence Accelerator

We run a structured Design Influence Accelerator sprint, designed specifically to help retail design teams shift from reactive execution to proactive strategy.

1) 1:1 Diagnostics with Design Leaders

We start with confidential one-to-one sessions across the design leadership team. This surfaces:

• Individual perceptions

• Hidden blockers

• Aspirations and pain points

• Themes are anonymised and consolidated to feed into the collective alignment phase.

2) Leadership Workshop:

A half-day facilitated session that creates real alignment across design and business leadership. In this session, we:

• Surface "elephants in the room"

• Co-create a shared vision for design’s role ("Success Island")

• Conduct a gap analysis against current state

• Establish a leadership pact with clear shared commitments and behaviours

3) Full-Team Mobilisation Workshop

A wider half-day working session where leadership presents the shared vision to the full team. In this session, we collaboratively:

• Map a 1–3 month quick-win roadmap

• Define initial tests, tools, and KPIs

• Create immediate focus to demonstrate early traction

• Follow-up alignment calls refine and lock in deliverables

4) Embed & Sustain (Optional)

For teams who want longer-term support, we offer:

• Ongoing leadership check-ins

• Stakeholder integration support

• Team health retrospectives

• Resilience coaching for leadership

• KPI and capability tracking

This Is About Capability, Not Just Craft

Your design team is likely more capable than you realise. The question is whether you’ve created the right conditions for that capability to influence the work that matters.

We don’t come in to "fix" design teams.

We partner with them to elevate their role, sharpen their voice, and build a stronger commercial bridge into the business. Because design, done right, doesn’t just make things look better. It makes the business work better.

If this sounds familiar, or you want to explore where your team sits today, reach out to us and book a call to see where we can help you set the right foundations.