When you are working on merchandising for your store there are many elements which need to be taken into account. However have you ever considered your display and merchandising needs really? There are scores of ways to use the merchandise and the display fixtures in your store to get across a different message and tell another story. Here are three different ways to use fixtures to really reinvent your whole retail store.
Book Shelves vs. Shelving Units:
If you are still working with stock shelving units you may have chosen the absolute most boring way of showing off your products. Have you ever considered taking out those shelving units and in its place putting in actual bookshelves? Shelving units make people more aware of the fact that they are in a store and that they are being sold something. If you have bookshelves up this makes people feel a lot more as though they are somewhere “safe.”
Bookshelves in the home are in a quiet place like a study or a community place like the living room or a private place like a bedroom. By replacing your tired shelving units with something original looking like a bookshelf it is as though you are inviting people into your private place taking your display and merchandising to the next level.
Gut Found Furniture and Repurpose for Display:
If you are trying to find an innovative way to display something ordinary another tool in your display and merchandising repertoire might be to take a found piece of found furniture and gut it.
Maybe you have access to an old grand piano. If you pull out the insides and just use the shell you can have your product of the month on display inside. It doesn’t even have to be a music related product; maybe you got have dishes on display inside of your piano or something like your hand-designed scarves. Taking your furniture piece and adorning it with your favorite pieces of product will help to create an intriguing display and is a good way to highlight a product.
Don’t Merchandise by Color – Tell A Story:
Another tool in display and merchandising is not to simply merchandise by color or type; tell a story in your store. Maybe you are selling soaps and along with this you have all these other products for the world of bathing to go along with that: loofahs, washcloths, shampoos, fragrant candles, and other bathroom accoutrements.
Instead of putting all that stuff up on a shelf you can instead tell the story of the bathroom in a bathroom! You can have a sink with a bathroom mirror which people can open up and find your products! Telling a story with your merchandising really ups your game. When your customers can see themselves doing what they are doing with your products in your store as though it were there home this makes your display and merchandising of your products that much more impactful.
There are 1,000 different ways to sell the same thing and to a degree that is what you and all your competitors all over town and all over the world are trying to do. When you can take your display and merchandising and push its application above and beyond you are really making a statement. You are saying that you have taken the extra time to consider your customers and their use of your products in their home.
That one fact can be all the difference between a successful and bustling business and a customer-less store with a whole bunch of full and brimming shelves.
Image by Charles & Hudson and licensed through Creative Commons.
Peter Bretl is a sales representative at Popco, Inc., a wholesale manufacturer of sign hanging supplies including plastic binding rings for light-weight signage.