If you own a retail store, you would know how tough it is to stand out from the crowd. Visual merchandising is one key strategy to help you display and promote your products in a way to increase sales. Retail visual merchandising also enables the visitors to find the products easily and generally make the shopping experience more enjoyable and appealing. If you are not sure how to get started with this, then don’t worry. I will help you out.
Here are a few approaches you need to follow to outsell your competitors.
Use Colour Coding
Colour plays an important role in luring would-be customer into your store. This is because the 83% of the information our brains process comes in through the sense of sight. Colour also has the power to evoke strong emotions and influence the way your product is perceived. A study conducted suggests that people are more likely to recall a colour over an object or product and it also says that people are likely to make the purchasing decision within 90 seconds of interacting with the product and over 60% of the assessment is based on colour. Bold colours catch the eye and if you notice your neighbour’s window displays are full of oranges and reds, go with a darker palette to create a stark contrast.
Utilise Blank Space
Empty space in stores should be utilised as much as possible. However, you need to take a balanced approach when adding visual merchandising to the blank spaces. You shouldn’t fill every inch of the shop floor with visual merchandising. Instead, a clever approach should be used, like placing floor standing brochure holders here and there as it won’t overwhelm customers. You can also use lifestyle and life-sized graphics to help customers form a connection with your product. For example, if you are a fashion retailer, the attention can be drawn to your new summer collection by using a display of someone at the beach.
Use Ample Lighting
Lighting shapes the overall atmosphere of your store and helps draw the attention to a particular item in a display. There are three techniques to this, primary, accent, and ambient lighting. Primary lighting is the overall illumination of your store, accent lighting draws the customers focus to a specific display and ambient lighting tends to be more dramatic as it creates an intriguing effect. Also, a recent research found that customers spend more time in the area of the store that has warm lighting. However, you need to ensure not to set primary lighting too dim and accent lighting should be used sparsely.
Create Experience on End-Caps
An end-cap display such as placing display brochure holders positions your product to be an impulsive buy. This provides the customers with an opportunity to learn more about the product and experience it before buying. It is an important visual merchandising practice that helps you to sell more products. There are three key elements to use for an effective end-cap display. Brochure/Pamphlet – it is an informative paper document with pictures of the products or service you sell. For example, you can create a pamphlet offering a BOGO (buy one get one) deal on your product. Core – it is the middle part of the display, providing an opportunity to examine or interact with the product. Stock – this is the actual stock that the customers take home so ensure you have enough.
These are few of the practices you need to follow to outsell your competitors. If you need more information on display and promotion products then you can visit Advertising Industries for help.
