Thirty Visual Merchandising Tips and Ideas

Gippe Kidores - graphic designer and visual merchandising specialist from Brunei, has extensive experience in developing creative VM solutions for large retailers. The author of a popular blog about expressive means of visual merchandising.

http://thevisualmerchandisingblog.wordpress.com/

Merchandising.ru - Russian online resource on the topic of visual merchandising. Regularly publishes articles and news on VM, and also provides the opportunity to find an agency or expert who will professionally carry out a project to develop visual merchandising for a store.

http://www.merchandising.ru

General ideas for visual merchandising.

1. Do not limit the theme of your visual merchandising to the number of four main seasons. Try to use at least six different topics throughout the year. If you manage to use different topics every month, it will be just great, but in practice it is hard to imagine. Six different topics per year seem like a more flexible approach that allows you to change the topic every two months. You can time these topics for special events, such as, for example, Mother's Day, Teacher's Day, Valentine's Day, festivals, anniversaries, as well as other dates and holidays.

2. Constantly add variety so that the buyer does not "get fed up" with a visual expression. You can use the same theme every year, but try not to use the same artistic concept and style. Also, do not use the same props for different topics that follow one after another. You can save recently used materials and apply them after a few months or place them in other stores in the network or in other departments of your store.

3. Come up with something unusual and impressive. People love new things, something they’ve never seen before. You can search for ideas for visual merchandising on the Internet. Gather information, connect them together and bring something of your own. You must not blindly copy someone else's - you must work creatively.

4. Do not forget to apply basic design elements and principles to your projects. Design elements include line, contour, shape, size, space, color, chiaroscuro and texture. Design principles include novelty and diversity, harmony, unity, balance, proportion, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, structure. Make good use of colors, textures, shapes, and lines. First you need to create a point of visual attention on your display case, then bring all the elements of the display case into a harmonious whole to create a sense of order and draw the attention of the observer to each element of the display case individually.

5. Use dynamic tools in the calculation areas. The integration of printed materials, multimedia, interactive installations and means of influencing the senses in the places where the goods are laid out is called a dynamic technique and is now becoming a trend in the field of visual merchandising. It is expected that this trend will continue to develop in subsequent years against the backdrop of the rapid development of digital technologies.

Storeroom and atmosphere

6. Allocate additional funds to the facade and appearance of your store, as this is the first thing people notice on the street. Maintain a pleasant appearance for your store. Pay attention to the canopies, awnings, signs, banners, entrance and surrounding area. To distinguish your store from the rest, you can use the primary colors of your brand or the unique carved and stucco decorations that represent your business.

7. If you have a large store, you must provide an indoor signage system. Do not forget about the localization of your system of signs and signs. Signs and signs play the role of visual cues that guide shoppers in your store and often lead to unplanned purchases. At the entrance to the store should use light signs to attract attention in the dark. Also do not forget to change the old signs.

8. In addition to a well-planned layout of the room, the height of the ceilings is of great importance. The ideal height is about 3 meters, but the higher the ceilings, the better. If the floor-to-ceiling distance is less than 3 meters, use low racks to improve the visibility of goods inside the store.

9. Keep the proper appearance of your shelving, stands, racks and other POS materials. If something is damaged, immediately repair the damage or mask the damaged area with some decoration. Rounded shelving is also becoming a trend in visual merchandising, so using such shelving will be your advantage.

10. Create a pleasant atmosphere in your store with aroma, music and spectacular lighting.

Display of goods

11. When laying out the goods, use associative techniques. Show off products at work or combine a group of items in one set. For example, combine a cutting board, knives, and other kitchen utensils in one place.

12. Use suitable racks or baskets for the goods by which you can determine the quality and price. Typically, customers expect products in special offer baskets to be sold at a lower price than products on shelves and stands.

13. You should be aware of the location of the key display points or the most visited areas of your store. Spread high-margin goods on shelves at the end of aisles or in baskets, especially at grocery stores. The third level of shelving, which is at eye level, and the checkout area are profitable areas for displaying frequently forgotten goods, accessories, less necessary and brandless goods. Obviously, you should not spread rice or sugar in these areas.

14. Change the position, order and style of the calculation once a month, if you are unable to do this twice a month. Frequent innovations will not let your regular customers get bored. Use a variety of display techniques, such as shelving, hanging, folding, stacking, or landfill, depending on what is most suitable for a particular type of product.

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15. Put product information or answers to frequently asked questions next to your products, especially if they have a unique specification, unique quality or are protected by a patent, because today the number of customers who are well versed in products and appreciate the quality of products is growing. It will also help reduce the burden on sales staff who have to answer the same questions to different customers.

Placement of signs and price tags

16. Price tags should be prominently displayed. After quality, price is the second most important selection factor for most buyers. Therefore, buyers should easily find out the price without the help of sales staff; For this, the price tag must be clearly visible and in the expected place. Stick the price tags on the upper right side, because the person’s visual attention is mainly directed to this area. When selling clothes, stick the price tag in the neck or on the collar, on the back of the waist for trousers, or on the label of the brand or manufacturer.

17. Price tags should not cover important textual and graphic information on the packaging. Make sure that the price tags are firmly glued and not skewed.

18. Price tags should be readable. The text on the price tag should be quality printed. When preparing materials for visual marketing, follow the rule of readability of the text.

19. To arouse the interest of buyers in special offers, hang up price tags. Posters and other professionally made signs and signs are more impressive and sell better than hand-made signs and signs.

20. For labels that are planned to be placed inside the stands, it is recommended to use a large font. Make sure that the labels on your signs and tablets are easy to read from a distance of 1,5 meters. The price should occupy 1/3 of the total area of ​​the sign or plate.

Lighting Techniques

21. Show only rays of light. Try to hide fluorescent or incandescent lamps so that only rays of light are visible. For example, you can hang Christmas lights with cloth or make cylindrical fabric lampshades and place them around fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Spotlights are great for this purpose. The soft light of the spotlights will illuminate your display windows evenly.

22. Chandeliers. If you have chandeliers, they will perfectly create a sense of sophistication and luxury. Art Nouveau chandeliers are also suitable for this purpose. These chandeliers are quite expensive, but you can look for alternatives.

23. Use different colors. Multi-colored lighting certainly looks more attractive than white light from a fluorescent lamp. Therefore, for lighting a window display case and some areas in the store, color lighting can be recommended.

24. Modern lighting. Bring a little modernity to your store and storefront design with the latest lighting. For example, Art Nouveau floor lamps and ceiling lamps, colored spotlights, LED lamps, neon lights and colored fluorescent lamps. You can surf the web for ideas in contemporary lighting.

25. Alternative lighting. Instead of using incandescent lamps and traditional Christmas lights, it is better to take compact fluorescent lamps or LED decorative lamps. Fluorescent and LED lamps are considered energy-saving and generate less heat, which makes their use economical and safe.

Sensory organs

26. Vision. Use wobblers instead of static shelftalkers. In order to pay attention to the product, it must not be in a static state, but in motion, because the movement naturally attracts attention.

27. Hearing. You may ask how the hearing relates to “visual” merchandising. I will answer that the auditory perception is indirectly related to the topic, but by acting on the customer’s hearing, you can achieve an increase in the effect. Suppose you sell Sony home theaters, Samsung 3D TVs, Phillips DVD players, or, say, bells. How to attract the attention of buyers without sound? The buyer must hear the goods that are associated with the sound, but, of course, they should not sound at the same time. Music is also capable of influencing the mood of people of any age. Make sure your store plays music.

28. Touch. Buyers should be able to touch the product with their hands. They should feel how soft, hard, smooth, rough, sticky or dry the product is.

In conclusion about the most important

29. Create a theatrical and emotional effect. It is hard to argue that people tend to respond to dramatic and emotional stimuli. Your topic of visual merchandising is very important for this task. In the New Year season, decorate the store according to the season so that customers can feel the special mood inside your store.

30. Constantly evaluate the effectiveness of the "silent seller" - visual merchandising. It is always useful to know if your visual merchandising strategies work for you or against you, which strategy needs to be improved and which one should be left. If this helps increase sales, then your “dumb seller” works efficiently.