Basic rules for window dressing

High-quality showcase attracts attention, attracts and sells. Homely and ineptly designed spoils the store’s image and disorientates the buyer. How to use the storefront resource competently, says Anna Balandina, an expert on merchandising.

Clear concept is the basis of storefront success

Any showcase is effective only if it is designed according to a certain concept. The concept of shop windows can be divided into two types: commodity-emotional and emotional. The main task of the product-emotional storefront is to help the store rebuild from competitors, be remembered by the buyer and sell the product. Emotional showcases fulfill these tasks to a lesser extent, but allow achieving a more ambitious goal: they cut into the customer’s subconscious and are forever associated in his memory with the brand name. The return on emotional display cases is enormous, but their design requires large resources. This type of display case is suitable for ambitious brands with strong DNA, which really have something to surprise the customer. They are used by Christian Louboutin, Louis Vuitton, Dior and other trend setters in the world of fashion and merchandising.

The vast majority of brands and shoe stores are suitable for product-emotional showcases. They suggest the presentation of a seasonal priority product, surrounded by an emotional concept. Creating a product-emotional showcase, the merchandiser should feel the main emotion, the idea of ​​a seasonal collection, and try to convey it with the help of display cases and additional props. It is not necessary to make a window dressing expensively and magnificently: one, but readable hint, indicating the main mood of the collection is enough. For example, in the case of a collection of boots with fur, sheep’s leather may be such a hint. Making a New Year's showcase, do not put a single Christmas tree in it - it will not sell the product, because it does not reflect the concept. It is better to use with it a seasonal image that supports the product and communicates its benefits. This technique is especially suitable for demonstrating a homogeneous product that does not differ in variety or bright colors. Choose images in which there is not only a product, but also a person. According to one of the laws of neuromarketing, the buyer best perceives images of happy faces of people of his circle - people of the same gender, peers by age or representatives of the same social layer. For example, Converse takes this into account and photographs children's shoes so that in the frame there is not only a shoe, but also the joyful face of a child sucking on candy.

What to showcase

The choice of the product to be displayed is very important. For this, there is a whole strategy: making a showcase, the merchandiser must work with a trendy seasonal product and sales drivers. In other words, you should choose not only beautiful, but also the sales-leading shoes. This also applies to stores, the assortment of which hardly fits the concept of “trending”. Even in the store of a conservative brand, the sales base of which is a dark basic assortment, the showcase and entrance area should demonstrate the most fashionable and attractive assortment samples. Buyers react precisely to such shoes, although they still prefer more relaxed models to buy.

Multi-store shop windows are created taking into account either a priority seasonal product or a priority brand. Large shoe brands often tell their partners which models from the new collection, according to their forecasts, will sell best. If you do not have such information, you should understand for yourself which categories of shoes will bring the greatest profit to the store. The general concept for multi-brand stores requires the most hit seasonal models of the main product to be displayed in the window, even if the assortment contains more trending groups.

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Today, most store owners already understand: the storefront is selling, so it needs to be given special attention. The next important step is to understand what only a clear, readable display case sells to the viewer. This means that it is impossible to overload the shop window with the product and decorations, otherwise they will “eat” each other, completely leveling all the works of the merchandiser. To create a clear and concise showcase concept, you need to take into account the size of the showcase, its depth, and the equipment available. It is best to recreate a multi-level composition in a showcase. By placing shoes from one functional-style group a little higher - for example, a classic shoe - and putting a casual boot a little lower, you can highlight one product against the background of another. Try not to leave a level floor without equipment in the display case: this is not a selling concept. Also, the standard rules for commercial presentation are valid for window dressing. These rules are to group the product on similar grounds, to work out the details and present the main product with an accompanying product.

How often to change the window

Change the goods in the windows should be at least once a month. If collections change frequently, it is optimal to do this once every two weeks. You can change the entire concept of a showcase no more than four times a year - clearly by season or taking into account the Christmas collection. Creating one concept for two seasons at once saves money, but requires a certain fantasy: it is necessary to provide for the development of the concept through both collections.

During the sales period, the strategy for presenting a product on a showcase is radically different from a regular showcase. Simply put, sales do not need to be framed beautifully, they need to be framed aggressively and clearly. At the beginning of the sale, shop windows are designed in accordance with the marketing priorities of the company. For example, if the priority is to sell collections at full cost against the background of a small sale, then models should be placed at the full price as well as information about the sale in the window, and mark the area with the sale product with POS materials in the back of the room. At the active sale stage, completely different showcase laws work: the brighter and more aggressive your message about the sale is, the sooner customers will think that your discounts are greater than those of competitors. Use the entire line of red, yellow and orange colors and carefully work with white, observing certain font sizes of this color. Do not be afraid to be like everyone else, in no case decorate the display case and maintain the effect by clearly zoning the product in the hall. Remember that shoe store windows do not have such a strong resource as clothes store windows, therefore, for their effectiveness it is important to work out the emotional component of the entire retail space and remove everything from the store that can neutralize the effect of storefront attractiveness, for example, bulky white equipment that does not reflects the "soul" of the brand and closes the window.