Is the product range you are selling changing and expanding?
Are the principles and guidelines you use to display becoming unworkable?
Many brands and retailers are widening and deepening assortments in order to maximise sales opportunities from both their loyal customers, as well as to attract new customers.
It makes financial sense:
43 percent of shoppers choose stores because the product suits their personal taste!
Recent real life examples would be:
- the movement into “lounge wear” and “home-wear” from fashion chains, lingerie brands, home specialists and heath & beauty brands
- range development of menswear childrenswear collections from a heritage of ladieswear
- many fashion and apparel chains evolving different sub-brands to appeal to younger or older customers with a variety of fashion positions and tastes
- the seismic shift in sales and assortment within technology and electrical ranges
Whilst good for sales, an evolving assortment makes the role of VM more challenging.
Everyday challenges include:
- how to find the physical space for more options within the same square metres
- how to separate or coordinate new ranges with existing ranges
- how to lay-out stores that show off the new assortment whilst still keeping visibility of existing best-seller ranges
- how to dynamically rotate space so that old and new have their “place in the sun!”
All retailers operate in ever changing and “hostile” store environments reacting to both external pressures, and continuously having to accommodate new internal initiatives.
Is it now the time to develop new VM principles and display guidelines to allocate, group and present your evolving assortment structure?