This blog title is a
bit misleading but try to stick with me on this because I have an
important point to make. Back in my youth things were so much simpler,
shops had window displays and merchandise was the stuff the shop keepers put on
the shelves. But, as with everything we've moved on and our
knowledge of customer shopping habits is far greater, our jobs are more
specialised and our skills have developed to meet these new demands.
I don’t really know when window display
became visual merchandising and arranging products on shelves became
merchandising but regardless of any changes there is a distinct difference.
Retailers who understand this difference increase sales. In my humble opinion
visual merchandising (display) is about attention seeking, getting customers’
attention and making them look through inspired visual
interpretation. Visual merchandising is best placed in shop windows,
in store display, high up above shop units or as a focal point to table selling
spaces. Merchandising, on the other hand, is about placing products
on shelves or tables to make the buying experience easy for customers, enticing
them to pick stuff up, form an emotional connection and not put it back on the
shelf! These days there is continual research into how we shop and
this, if used correctly, will inform how a shop is laid out and where and how
products are merchandised on the shop floor to maximise sales.
Even with all this information to hand there
are still many retailers, independents in particular, who are missing out on
maximising their sales. In smaller shops there is often a tendency to over
display products. The image above sort of illustrates this. Don’t get me wrong,
I think this is a stylish shop but this image is displaying one brand, Marimekko and
while it may work here this style of merchandising would not work for retailers
selling many different brands. Most customers would feel uncomfortable
about touching the products on these shelves for fear of ruining the display.
For me, these shelves are displayed with product, not merchandised with
product. Probably the only place where this school of thought would
differ is at the top end of the market where customers want to see exclusivity
and visual merchandising (display) will be conspicuous throughout.
Of course some bigger retailers like Selfridges make
their stores very shoppable by combining both, display and merchandising
in one very neat professional package…
All the best
Peter
#designer #retailconsultant #creativevisualiser
#collaborator #mentor
tel 07907 691711
email info@artysmith2.com
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