(This is part 2. Part 3 next month)
In the first part of our merchandising series we had created a preface to how you could capitalize on making your store atmosphere more welcoming. In this second part we would break it down for you further.
Let’s talk about store themes. Most of the time people limit themselves to four themes, mostly: Winter, spring, summer and fall. Ideally a store should have a fresh theme every month to be inviting for new and returning customers. But it could be unmanageable at times for the store management to cope with it. In that case, at least six themes a year should be targeted.
There are plenty of occasions and events available round the year to tag your theme with, events like Fathers’ Day, Mothers’ Day, Teachers’ Day, Valentine’s Day, anniversaries festivals, and other celebrations and holidays. These special days should be sufficient for you to find at least six themes a year.
You can keep the same themes the next year too but bring in freshness by tweaking the display by making it distinct from previous year by introducing new decorations rather than using the same items you used last year, this way it would look boring and dull, so avoid it completely.
You can also introduce schemes within your themes. For example, let’s say you have a Christmas theme. You can introduce a White Christmas Window, one Toys Kingdom Window and one Christmas Party Window as schemes to go within your main theme. But make sure that you avoid using the same material for your schemes.
Be dynamic. Even interactive. How do you do that? By being digital. These days store presentations are not just merely limited to displaying your products neatly across the store. These days more digital installations are applied to not only make your stand out but also look trendy and hip.
Integrating printed materials, multi-media, interactive installation and sensory input in your display are known to be dynamic techniques and are becoming the visual merchandising trends, especially in the coming years because of the fast moving digital civilization.
Think about it, in this digital age it’s hard to capture people’s attention away from their digital devices. They’re either walking past stores fast or just quickly glance at the display. In this fast paced environment you can throw an incentive that cannot be turned down. Be interactive. By this, we mean, have an interactive window where customers can customize features on some products, before paying their own-designed items at the checkout counter. It always works.
So in this second installment of our series of blogs on merchandising we’ve shared some more goodies on how you can improve on your existing store displays. Watch this space as we come back with yet another entry full of tips and ideas.