Visual Merchandising: An Ongoing Evolution!
Forthcoming presentation, Tim Radley, speaking at London’s Retail Design Expo Olympia, London: Wednesday March 11th – 2pm
Visual merchandising has proven itself to be a versatile and resilient part of retail businesses and has survived many changes of heart as commercial retail has periodically fallen in and out, and back in love with it again.
The fact is that visual merchandising has not so much evolved but has grown, in the sense that evolution leaves the past behind where VM has made better its origins whilst growing into ever wider retail realms.
The classic window dressing heritage is as relevant as ever, as stores clamour to create theatre in their ongoing battle to pull customers from the digital worlds of mobile, tablet and PCs. However as retail businesses have grown and expanded in the assortments that they sell, the portfolio of stores they service and the variety of customers they sell to, then visual merchandising has grown as well.
The growth has been one of integration with the retail departments around them.
As VM expanded from windows to every part of the retail environment its integration with store operations, customer service and marketing was an essential stepping stone to retail stores becoming consistent and compelling brand environments.
More recently wider portfolios of different stores, filled with more complex assortments, graded and clustered for commercial sales and customer demographic focus has meant the necessity for visual merchandising to integrate with space planning, product designers and buying & merchandising teams.
In today’s retail world, the last thing that visual merchandising needs is to be isolated within retailers.
Come and listen to me speak about how Visual Merchandising has grown and evolved to face the challenges of today’s retail world, the VM toolbox that is required and whether technology is a help or a hindrance.
I am Tim Radley, founder of VM-Unleashed! and I will be speaking at the Retail Design Expo event at Olympia, London on Wednesday 11th March at 2pm.
I look forwards to meeting you there and answering your particular retail and VM questions. Many thanks and see you there.