Emotional shopping. How to make showcases for the holiday?

On New Year's Eve, everything from young to old is waiting for fairy tales, so for buyers of fashion goods of any segment this is the time when a feeling of a fabulous New Year miracle is created. In the New Year and Christmas period, in the store, first of all, the shop windows should be attractive, they must convey the mood of a fabulous New Year miracle! In the New Year, shop windows literally sell like a magnet, attracting customers to the store.

Most importantly, New Year's showcases should be emotional! Otherwise, you will lose to your competitors who will be able to play on the emotions of the consumer. And it will not necessarily be competitors from the shoe segment.

In the New Year, the emotional component is so strong that the buyer can even change the segment during the holiday shopping: going for shoes, he can ultimately buy something from a different opera for himself or as a gift to a loved one - precisely because he was attracted by fabulous shop windows another stores. In the New Year's bustle it is far from always important what you buy, it is much more important - where, in what atmosphere and with what mood. Retailers (marketers, merchandisers, sellers) should be a little wizards selling a fairy tale ...

This is the main eternal trend of New Year's showcase - to create a beautiful, magical fairy tale, and by what means of artistic expression you will convey the mood of magic, and what kind of fairy tale it will be - this is another question. Rather, the questions that we will try to answer in this article.

Question 1: How much does a New Year's showcase cost?

First of all, retailers need to come to terms with the fact that New Year's windows are the most expensive all year long. Therefore, when planning a budget for a New Year’s window, it’s best to use the numbers of the annual budget, while understanding what can be saved for the sake of a “winter fairy tale”. Ideally, the cost of decorating a New Year's window display can be 35% -50% of the annual budget for window dressing, if we propose four interchangeable seasonal decorations. How can you save on window dressing without sacrificing quality? For example, to make a single theme for spring and summer, but save money for the full-fledged decoration of New Year's shop windows.

Remember: it is important not only to spend money on the design, but to make a showcase on time, so that it works the entire sales period.

Question 2: When do I need to draw up a New Year's showcase?

It is necessary to issue festive showcases already in the 20 numbers of November!

I am always surprised by clients who, at the end of October, request urgently to develop a storefront concept for the New Year. Because it is necessary to plan and create this showcase concept much in advance, at least for the season, then both high-quality development and cost optimization will be possible.

If you have a chain of stores, you can recommend ordering the production of decorations and elements for your New Year's shop windows in China, where you can find / produce anything you want much cheaper than anywhere else. Of course, we should talk about more or less decent volumes, so that it is really profitable. But to use this cheap resource, you need time: the Chinese are unpredictable, they can delay the sending of ready-made and already paid decorations, they always need to have a month, or preferably two, in stock. For example: you specify delivery dates in the contract at the end of September, but you understand that if snowflakes come in a month, then you still have time to arrange your windows in time. Only in this case, the Chinese version will work.

3 Question: What details are important?

When making a New Year's window, all the details and nuances are important - from the concept of the story itself that you want to tell, to lighting and musical accompaniment. Music in the Christmas image is required! And the New Year's light - all these blinking garlands, lanterns, iridescent balls and accent lighting - create an additional advantage for the store. The main showcase light must be correctly exposed so that the product is well lit plus garlands, lights, sparkling surfaces.

Music and accent light is the part that matches your New Year concept.

Question 4: What should be a storefront concept?

When asked about what should be the New Year's fairy tale in your shop window, only you can answer best. There are many ideas:

• a quote from a New Year’s fairy tale familiar from childhood (“The Snow Queen”, “12 of the Month” and others);

• your own fairy tale, or a New Year's story told;

• any iridescent, sparkling surfaces and designs in display cases, assembled into a single concept.

It is important to think over your storefront concept so that it "flows" into the trading space. For example, some element of the storefront concept can adorn the form of sellers. But the main thing for such a flowing concept is a well-designed, decorated entrance zone with a New Year's flash product capsule. This is what sells and what is important to place commercially in the field of view of buyers in the New Year period.

If you do not have a special flash product (an elegant evening mini-collection), you can choose it from the seasonal collection and group it in the entrance area and specially present it, this will also significantly increase sales. The area where such models of shoes will be presented is preferably specially decorated. This is how Unichel works: they effectively present their collection of off-season shoes for the New Year in a special New Year's zone in their company stores, and sales are increasing. Moreover, these models are almost the first in sales.

Question 5: Is the product important in the New Year's window?

It is important, but not all brands put it in the New Year's window. For several years now, the trend of “story telling” has been popular on the market - plot showcases that tell us fairy tales and where the product is secondary. This storefront concept is suitable for market leaders with 100 percent recognition, and it came from luxury. One of the first Louis Vuitton began to cultivate it, in the shoe segment the stunning New Year's showcases of Emotions were created by Christian Louboutin. The incredible showcases of luxury brands amaze the imagination by the elaboration of every detail, the smallest, unusual and unique materials, bizarre shapes. No less popular are interactive, moving shop windows that French, American department stores love so much.

In the mass and medium segments, it is necessary to work with the product in shop windows, that is, to present it commercially. In fabulously shimmering showcases, we mainly present seasonal hit models and seasonal sales drivers. It is the buyer who comes to them and it is they who sell especially well in the pre-holiday season: people often make purchases on emotions and willingly acquire trendy things that can hang after the holidays.