ARTYSMITH2: CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN 7

Yep, there’s only seven weeks left to Christmas and the moment has finally arrived for all independent retailers to do all they can to increase sales in the run up to Christmas.

Over the next seven weeks I’m going to encourage all you budding retail entrepreneurs to fine tune your retail offer and make the most of this important holiday season. I’ve put together seven weekly Christmas blog posts on what you can do help smash your sales targets. And, although the tasks may be a bit broad in nature you should be able to easily adapt the principles to suit your own individual retail offer.

Even though it’s getting a bit late we’re going to start with Christmas windows. There are some amazing Christmas displays around again this year, from the weird to the wonderful, from the inspired to the innovative but I'm going to focus on something that everyone can achieve with limited skills and resources.

When it comes to Christmas we all tend to like the same things, pine trees, lots of snow, twinkly lights, beautifully wrapped presents and being able to show someone we care.

I'm sure most of you have got your Christmas retail plans well underway by now but if not here are a few tips that might help get you started.

Background – If there’s a lot going on behind your shop window you may need to create a backdrop to calm things down a bit. Try J D McDougall for inexpensive casement fabric or if you want a more traditional rustic look try Castle Hill Crafts for printed wood paper. For something a bit more sparkly (and expensive) try B Brown.

Shape - The triangle is the go to shape for display. Imagine putting a huge triangle shape in your shop window and then making everything, props, merchandise, mannequins, kitchen sink and whatever fit into this shape.

Structure – If want to make it easy and create an instant hit one big Christmas tree will do the trick. You can either put product around the bottom in partially opened boxes or if you sell smaller stuff, hang it on the tree. Alternatively, make a pyramid of strong cardboard boxes wrapped in Christmas paper to place your products on. If your shop windows are landscape shaped repeat the structure two or three times (see image below) and if you’ve got big stuff, overlap it, layer it, stack it but whatever you do stay within the basic triangle shape.

Empty space – This is really important, you need blank or empty space around your overall display to attract tour customers attention and make them see. Think of it like the plain mount around a picture.

Christmas decorations – keep to natural looking Christmas foliage with pine cones dipped in white emulsion or white glitter sand and lots and lots of warm white twinkly Christmas lights. I’m the last person to curtail creativity but this simple approach is essentially what we all love to see at this time of the year and it will give out that Christmas feeling quicker and better than anything else. If you want to add Christmas baubles or other decorations just make sure to limit your colour palette

Colour – try to keep to two colours if you can or a maximum of three. Shades and patterns of the same colour will also work well but don’t forget your merchandise needs to work with this too!

Snow – Don’t skimp on this one, lots and lots of snow will give you a truly magical effect. Pile it don’t sprinkle it. If the base of your window area is a dark colour you might want to put down a base of fabric snow first. Try DZD for snow material and alpine snow and to make it even more magical sprinkle the finished display with iridescent snow

There you have it a magical Christmas window with all the basic elements customers want to see. Next week we’re going inside your shop and looking at how best to turn your shop into a premium selling space, well a Christmassy one at least...