Post No.08 in the weekly newsletter series:
‘52 Steps to the Perfect Shop!’
You too can have ‘The Perfect Shop’ by this time next year!
Now that we’ve started working in linear metre ‘Product Story Blocks’ we can really start to plan and control the visual look of our displays.
As we are hopefully learning, everything in retail shops is a combination of the quantitative & the qualitative. Generally speaking getting the numbers correct gives us a chance to make money, whilst getting the visual presentation correct will really drive the sales.
So, we have hopefully ensured our ‘Product Story Block’ is made up of the correct balance of image makers, planned best sellers and core product, and we can now plan how it will look to the customer.
But before you dive headlong into the visual display, the props, the graphics, the busts and mannequins, you need to realise how powerful a tool visual merchandising is.
Visual merchandising can make every product, and product display look special. But the way that you visually plan your ‘product story blocks’ will also give a powerful perception to the customer of who you are as a retailer – your brand position.
If the products look beautiful, then why does the perception of who we are as a brand matter? I hear you ask.
The important thing to remember is that successful fashion brands are conceived to appeal to specific customers. Everything they do from the branding, the product selection, the pricing, marketing and shop design are designed to deliver a clear and attractive proposition and perception to the target customer.
As a fashion shop you can clearly be aimed to appeal to a traditional customer, or a contemporary one, or to a very trendy one. You cannot appeal to all three, otherwise you will appeal to nobody!
You can also appeal to lifestyle shopping missions such as formal buying, or occasions, or a customer just wanting casualwear, athleisure. And the many positions in between such as Smart Casual or Soft Formal.
The power of ‘product story block’ displays is that they define a customer’s perception of what the proposition is, and whether it is the right one for them. And critically, and either correctly or incorrectly, whether this shop is NOT for them.
You must use the correct VM techniques to project the correct brand and product perception to the customer. For example, trendy product displayed traditionally, or classic categories displayed trendily, will confuse and deter customers from visiting and buying.
Visual merchandising is a powerful selling tool. Used correctly it will stimulate sales, but used incorrectly, and it will kill them!
In particular, take care with 2 very important visual merchandising tools applied to your ‘product story blocks’. Firstly the combination of the way you present products – folded, frontal or laterally hung. Secondly the overall symmetry and space patterns of the block.
Let’s assume with have a 3.6 linear metre wall display – a product story blocks. Display everything frontally and we have a casual display. Adding folded shelves re-enforces that casual perception. If we present laterally, then the perception will be more formal.
In either case using only one type of display will look quite basic, with a perception is quite basic as well. Mix up the frontal & lateral and the perception is more sophisticated. A perception of sophistication will certainly led to a perception of higher quality, and certainly higher price.
Then take the whole wall. If you want to look traditional then have symmetry, with higher displays in the middle, and maybe a bust. If you want contemporary have a flat topped wall display. If you want trend then use non-symmetry and clever ways of using space to create unorthodox visual balance.
Have a straight line across the middle of a display with 2 defined levels and you project basic. Create no obvious lateral divide and flex from 1 to 2 to 3 display levels and that element of sophistication creeps in again. You begin to see how important it is to make the correct visual merchandising choices.
Of course, Visual Merchandising is a complex discipline, often undervalued, and you must also know how to use many other tools such as product densities and unit depths, for example. You must ensure you project the correct price perception, whilst having enough unit depth to satisfy available sizes and customer demand, whilst not overstocking and damaging brand value.
With such important subtleties this is another reason why it is so important to plan, buy and display in linear metre ‘product story blocks.’ Planning ensures that the appropriate time has been taken to construct the displays of blocks so they convey the correct perception. This plan can then be delivered into shops alongside the product delivery.
Whilst even the best-laid plans don’t always arrive together, any shop visual merchandisers with no plan to work to, and with boxes of mystery products to arrange, will waste so much time in the shop, and even then possibly give a totally incorrect or confused perception to the customer.
This is both a visual merchandiser’s and the customer’s worst nightmare. Bad for sales and bad for powerful brand propositions.
Plan and buy and then display ‘product story blocks,’ for walls, floor fixtures & tables. Ensure they have the correct balance of product types to be commercial. Then display the blocks with correct considerations of display mechanics, symmetry & balance, and you will have commercial success.
’52 Steps to the Perfect Shop!’
For everyone looking to improve their physical shops, or thinking of opening their first pop-up or permanent shop.
The weekly newsletters, and the 10 content modules they feature, have been created from my experiences of opening hundreds of shops, of all different sizes, situated across the world, selling just about everything there is to sell.
Every week we explore the sequential process of physical shop development to help you deliver your perfect shop.
Missed any of the previous ’52 Steps’ then just click here to catch up…