Visual Merchandising Techniques: 7 Ways to Wow Customers With Displays That Increase Sales.
Merchandising displays help create a great customer journey. This post provides a few tips and techniques to help you get it right.
Few things impact how customers experience your stores more than visual merchandising. From that first impression gained looking through a store window to strolling through aisles and product displays, the look and feel you create in your store can dramatically influence shopping behavior and increase sales.
Merchandising is essentially the way your customers see and experience your stores. Good visual merchandising displays make use of retail space to enhance brands and products in ways that are engaging, interesting, and meaningful to customers.
So, what are the best ways to create eye-catching displays? Here are a few visual merchandising tips worth noting. Some are proven best practices, while others are new and different ways of looking at merchandising. Dig into these techniques and see if they don’t help you better merchandise your stores.
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Make sure displays connect with your target customers.
Step one is understanding exactly who your customers are and what they’re looking for in a brand or product. After all, even the most spectacular display won’t prompt sales if it doesn’t resonate with your target customers. A relevant and compelling visual display, on the other hand, will stop the right customers in their tracks and entice them to make the effort to learn more, and, hopefully purchase the items.
A well-targeted display might provide important information your customers need to know about a product. It might be sensory and experiential, reflecting your brand attributes. Or, it might connect to a key common interest among your customers. The job of a display to grab the attention of customers and slow the shopping journey long enough spike interest and win more retail sales. For this to happen, the display must, in some way, inspire the customer.
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Remember, less is often more
We’re in no way suggesting that you rule out vibrant colors or outlandish design in your visual merchandising. These elements often work. However, sometimes, particularly for higher-end products, a simple but intelligent use of space, lighting, and understated signage can actually lead to greater visual appeal. You might even want to consider displaying just a few signature items as opposed to many different products. Remember, overwhelming passers-by isn’t the same as connecting with them.
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Five seconds for merchandising signage
Remember this general rule to make sure your store signage gets straight to the point and doesn’t just become one more distraction. Signage is key to visual merchandising, but it must be very specific in its intention. Whether it’s touting a sale price or special offer, advertising key product features, or even just giving directions, make sure what you’re saying is clear in a single glance. If you expect customers to look twice or stop to figure things out, spoiler alert – they won’t.
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Make use of that store window
There’s no better way to make a great first impression with your customers than by creating a great store window. Exciting street-front or mall-facing windows get more attention and that means added store traffic and more business. Whether it’s a big and bold installation; a spectacular holiday theme; or an elaborate window treatment, it’s important to remember that your store window can be an invitation to customers – or not.
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A well-trained, highly informed sales team
It’s impossible to examine merchandising without also taking stock of the sales team working it. A good brand ambassador is a trained sales expert who understands the product or products being marketed; is motivated to engage customers; and is fully prepared to answer their questions regarding product features, pricing, warranties, available options and any other concerns. No matter how eye-catching the display, if a brand ambassador or sales rep can’t effectively engage customers, there is a high probability that sales will be lost.
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Remember the ‘Rule of Three’ but don’t get stymied by it.
The ‘Rule of Three’ refers to the tried-and-true principle of arranging product displays in sets of three. It might be three products side by side, or it might be a variety of items in three different heights or sizes, or it might be three different price points. Displays designed around the ‘Rule of Three’ have historically done a very good job of attracting customers.
Here’s the caveat. Times have changed and so have shoppers. Today, thinking outside the box can lead to fantastic visual merchandising. In store experiences can create emotional connections with customers. Spotlight products can break through the clutter on singularly unique displays. Don’t disregard the old ways because they often still work. However, don’t be afraid to realize that sometimes rules need to be broken in the name of great merchandising.
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Leverage the latest retail technology
Retail is in the midst of a technological revolution and areas like customer engagement and visual merchandising are at the center of the next generation of sales.
You’ll already find brands incorporating high-definition video, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and other breakthrough technologies into their visual merchandising strategies. Additionally, a host of new customer engagement solutions are allowing retailers to improve service at the point-of-sale by providing sales teams with instant access to product details, financing options, accessory information, FAQs and other critical information.
Beyond the sales floor, digital data solutions are delivering brands and retailers real-time insight into store conditions, including merchandising and display compliance, inventory status, customer traffic patterns, product sales (broken down by store, region, time of day), and more.
Solutions like Mobile Insight® not only capture this data, but distill it into clear and concise reports that can be accessed by decision-makers at any time, from anywhere. The result is immediate insight into how well visual merchandising is performing. Which products and displays are generating sales? Which ones are stagnant? What shopping patterns can be identified? Is pricing impacting sales? Is inventory optimized? Are marketing and promotions generating ROI?
Brands and retailers who invest in this level of actionable intelligence find themselves in the enviable position of being able to adapt and augment their visual merchandising strategies quicker and more effectively based on clear and reliable insights.
If you found this blog helpful and are interested in learning more about retail strategies and solutions, visit our solutions page. Also, check out our other blog posts that discuss retail technology and how you can leverage it for your business.