What do we fill our stores with? The literal answer, of course, is products. However, if you want to be a successful retail business with profitable shops then it’s important to consider your product assortment as a series of ‘product stories.’
Customers may well buy just a single product. Hopefully they buy more. But it is the grouping of products as logical, attractive product stories that draws the customer through a shop, pulls then to displays and entices then to buy their single, or related products.
Of course , the actual stories you can tell about your products are almost infinite. Stories can be about price, colour, design, brand, end-use, lifestyle, seasons, events, and so on.
Warning! You have to be strategic and structured in how you display these product stories, or you will have visual chaos!
To convey and communicate so many stories to your customers in your shop, through product blocking, arrangement & display, you must consider just 3 fundamental types of product story. And each product story type has something very important to say to the customer about your brand, your shop and your products.
The 3 types of product story are 1) Category stories 2) Theme stories 3) Promotional stories
1) Category stories communicate continuity to the customer and they give you authority. Authority as a brand, authority as a shop, authority of product.
In terms of product display, as you would expect, these product story blocks consist only of products from a single category.
2) Theme stories communicate dynamism and excitement to the customer and they present you as inspirational. Inspirational as a brand, inspirational as a shop, inspirational for products.
In terms of product display, these product story blocks consist of products from several categories but with a common theme. Maybe colour story, design, lifestyle, materials, end-use, brand, ethical…etc.etc.
3) Promotional stories communicate scarcity & opportunity to the customer and they stimulate urgency. Urgency to visit you as a brand, as a shop, and urgency to buy products.
In terms of product display promotional story blocks can be, one product, a category, or a mixture of different categories, but they all have in common the use of graphic communication to deliver a strong promotional message, most often focused on price & price promotions, but also seasonal and brand events.
And it can be as simple as that! Customers identify and visually understand these 3 types of product story because you combine & display products in the way that they expect.
The best way to test how well your product story visual merchandising is working, is to look at every product block in your shop. Are you able to say which of the 3 product stories you are looking at? Are you able to say it quickly, and without doubt?
The worst displays are the ones where the product story type is unclear. These are the ones which are a confusion of the 3 stories. Maybe they have one dominant product category, but mixed with a little of another category, and a bit of a third, a random product or brand, one colour here, another there, classic product here and contemporary there, and no clear graphic signs to help us.
Customers will not thank you for confusing them. You may have a good product assortment but if you make it difficult for the customer to understand and shop, you will lose all authority, inspiration and opportunity as a brand and a shop.
The balance of the 3 story types is also critical for your brand positioning. And if there’s on thing that customers like as much as clear product stories, it’s clear brand positioning. Is this shop for me?
Do you want to convey authority and trust? Do you want to create inspiration and excitement? Do you want to deliver the urgency to buy? Ensure you project the correct brand perception in your shops. Ensure that the product story perception is in line with your product buying strategy.
So, ensure you do balance the 3 product story types correctly. And one important tip. Ensure you place the correct product story types on walls and on floors. Perceptions from walls are generally more powerful than those of floor fixtures.
Having only 3 product story types might sound limiting. But remember that within each type of product story display you can still play with different display techniques, combinations of techniques, insert props, mannequins & graphics, and work with symmetry, asymmetry and balance, and you can use the visual attributes of the products themselves.
Just before you start getting too creative, consider the question of what type of product story you are presenting. Control your categories, control you option densities, your unit depths, and then aim for the stars.