Drawing attention to new product lines and ranges within a busy high street environment is extremely difficult. Especially in a time like ours where there are thousands of businesses across the world all trying to do the same. In this blog, we’ll talk you through our suggestions to ensure your retail display is bang on trend and give you tips and suggestions to act as inspiration for the next rollout.
It’s simple, an in-store display is the main contributor to driving conversions. 24% of purchases are influenced just by window displays alone, according to the NPD – who for more than 50 years, have provided unmatched insights in many industries – that’s excluding displays that are actually on the shop floor.
When entering a store, the most visually attractive areas are the areas that first catch your eyes be it window displays, decor styles, fixtures and visual merchandisers. Today there are visual merchandising cultures that many of the biggest brands follow to maintain a consistent brand image, effectively using attractive graphics and visual art to increase foot traffic and in turn boost sales.
One major issue that retailers keep missing the mark for is not respecting the price point for designing displays. If you invest properly into a retail display, you will have a fitting visual merchandiser for a properly invested product.
In an interview with Linda Cahan, retail visual merchandising and design consultant, she explained the importance of “Space equals cost” and that “If you have expensive merchandise, people will understand that if there’s actually some space between the items”. A great way to tackle this is to mind the space for your merchandise; price and space occupied should be proportionate as it sets expectations for customers and in the end, can improve the overall shopping experience.
Yes, you may have an idea for a visual merchandiser that is out of this world, but creative ideas do have their limits. Creating a retail display that isn’t complicated to execute makes logistics a lot more straightforward for retailers, displays are in and out of the shop floor in weeks to make room for new products.
The best way to avoid logistical complications is to design and build your displays around the circumstances it will be in. Displays that are robust, tough and versatile stay around longer than a lower-cost option.
However, you can get creative around challenges. In small storefronts, space is more valuable. So a unit that can maximise the space it’s been given while keeping functionality will undoubtedly perform better than a display that isn’t.
We’ve noticed with more unpopular displays; there is a lack of utility. There are plenty of in-store displays that look amazing but serve no purpose. Resulting in missing out on sales opportunities.
The one huge, unparalleled advantage the high street has over online shopping is that hands-on experience. Customers want to see the product in action, they want to see it up close, interact with it, test its functionality and explore it with all their senses, from touch, smell, look and feel. They also want to see how they can apply the product to their life. “The whole purpose of visual merchandising, other than selling merchandise, is to teach the customer what they should buy and how to put it together,” says Cahan.
Finally, something that we’ve seen first hand is retailers disregarding the details because of the lack of basic guidelines. This makes documenting brand guidelines increasingly important for retailers with more than one location. You can spend a great deal of time and money getting your retail display perfect, but if you send it out across hundreds of store locations without guidelines as to where it should sit, how it should be merchandised and so on, it could fail at the first hurdle. Creating a synonymous customer experience in every store will look attractive for new companies looking to merchandise within your store.
At Luminati we are passionate about what we do, we have a huge range of standard products perfect for retail stores, high-street shops and much much more. If you’re looking for something more bespoke, our Display Design Service offers almost limitless customisation to our regular products or work with us to design and manufacture something completely new. If you have any questions get in touch with our friendly sales team on 01752 698720.
