How Do I Look? Display Merchandising For Your Store

In the last few issues of the Impact newsletter, we have focused on some core subjects that we know are necessary for your store to succeed and operate smoothly. First, we addressed planning and the kinds of things needed for your store plan. Second, we talked about inventory management and the need to do it right. Last month, we worked on shaping your stores identity and the importance of communicating who you are and what you are about through your product selection and your look and feel. Well, display merchandising is a natural extension of your efforts in these areas. Good merchandising must:

1.       Be planned

2.       Be coordinated with your inventory efforts and buying strategies

3.       Help to put the stamp on who you are and what your store is about

The objective of display merchandising is to promote, increase awareness and/or educate the customer about certain products, special offerings or services in your store by providing them high visibility in various areas of your store. This is often accomplished through the hanging of signs, setting of displays and display tables or allotting of feature space by your cash register(s) or on certain shelves. No matter where you display, there are some best practices I have collected from experience and from the web that you should abide by in order to build successful displays.

1.       Keep your displays neat and clean.

2.       Make sure you have the product in stock. You would be surprised how often this rule is broken.

3.       Track what works and what doesn’t and then repeat what works

4.       Set-up a merchandising calendar. Dayspring offers a great merchandising calendar that highlights key seasons and holidays. You can stick with that or add events like church conferences or concerts to your merchandise mix.

5.       Change the displays regularly. If a display stays up to long, people start ignoring it. To avoid this, change your displays every 4 to 6 weeks. This is also a way to keep your store fresh to customers.

6.       Allocate merchandise display space and expenditures appropriately in recognition of customer demographics. If the bulk of your business’s customers are males between the ages of 20 and 40, the bulk of your displays should probably be shaped to catch their interest.

7.      Be careful of pursuing merchandise display designs that sacrifice effectiveness for the sake of originality.

8.      Do not overcrowd a display. Customers tend to pass over messy, busy-looking displays. Instead, Trudy Ralston and Eric Foster, authors of How to Display It: A Practical Guide to Professional Merchandise Display affirm that “a display should feature a single item or point of interest…. Every primary article [in a display] must interact with every other so that they all come together as a group. If they don’t it will look as if there is not one design, but several.

9.      Combine products that are used together in displays. For example, pairing bibles with other bible related resources (covers, hi-liters and notebooks) is likely to be more effective than placing it alone or with some other product that is only slightly related to bibles.

10.   Pay attention to details when constructing and arranging display backgrounds. For example, avoid dark backgrounds when customers will be looking through a window, since this makes the glass behave as a giant mirror.”

11.    Since merchandise displays can be utilized to educate customers. A well-conceived display could, for example, illustrate a product use that may not have occurred to most customers. “In addition to selling actual merchandise, display can be used to introduce a new product, a trend, and a new ‘look’ or idea,” explained Martin Pegler in Visual Merchandising and Display. “Display can be used to educate the consumer concerning what the new item is, how it can be worn or used, and how it can be accessorized. The display may also supply pertinent information, the price, and other special features.”

Ultimately, through trial and error you will learn what works well for your store and that is what you want to do repeatedly. The true measure of whether a display works or not is sales.

Happy Merching!

David McIntyre

KVI Consulting