Environment
Environment
The best way to stimulate sales is to create a shopping environment that excites your customers. That requires you to know who your customers are and what they want but given all that, you then need to deliver product and displays which your customer will respond to.
We want this site to be one that you can refer to for ideas and to share best practices too. That way we can build the My Marketing Community into something that we can all be proud of and benefit from. So please do send us pictures of displays that you are proud of or those that you have seen which have inspired you, through our contact us form.
We work on the visual merchandising principle of S.H.O.W.: Story, Height, Operation, Wow
STORY: Tell a story with whatever products you draw together and make it a good yarn. Your story could be a seasonal event, a recipe combination, a producer, recipe books and ingredients.... whatever it is, tell the story with related products to inspire bringing in all associated cross merchandise.
Try to add something a bit different and bring colour through homewares, seasonal plants, etc. to create a theme. You can always make a one-off purchase with a local market just for the season. Large lemon trees give height and potted bulbs or herbs are easy to maintain. Don’t forget to create buy level point of sale as necessary as everything should be priced and for sale.
HEIGHT: The best displays get height and variation of height in their displays. Use boards, blocks, upturned bowls, buckets, piles of books or whatever you have around.
Some delivery boxes or crates are perfect but don’t limit yourself. Be creative. You can always spray paint pots for colour interest or talk to the kitchen (if you have one) about some of their delivery boxes. For smaller bagged confectionery and such like, pile into a bowl, plate, basket, small box or drawer and layer these up on blocks. Hopefully these pictures will show you that almost anything can be put to display use.
OPERATIONAL: Whatever you do and however clever you are, always remember this is about making it easy to choose something and shop. It is no good creating a huge display which will fall down like Jenga when an item is removed. And don’t forget that it is important to clearly label prices. For any gift items, buy price stickers that are easily peelable.
WOW: When you have done all that, stand back and see if your display is Wow. If not, add in colour, fresh produce, a vase of flowers or plants, something from homewares. Just make your customers smile and engage with these feature displays and your sales will follow.
Just keep reminding yourself to S.H.O.W. off your products to their best.