Visual merchandising

Visual merchandising

The question arises why invest time, energy and money to do visual merchandise?

The ultimate reason is to increase business as much possible and stand apart from the crowd. Make customer walk-in rather than walk out. Make customer stay long inside the store for better conversion. Stand apart from the market, so that markets players and customers talk about it, which creates a curiosity for others to visit and end up buying. When customer visits they must get engaged with all 5 senses.

So what are the major aspect and purpose of Visual merchandising?

• Ignite the imagination: while grouping merchandise a visual merchandiser used his creative imagination by using a colour scheme, the collection storyline for best visual appeal. Some science and creative sense should be used in the combination of grouping merchandise. For example, sportswear window can have a combination of apparel, sports shoe, and sports prop such as football, Hockey, Knee guard or elbow guard etc. Visual should be so interesting that the customer should look twice. 

• Music: to engage customer music played a very important role. It should be so soothing with softer bests which force to customer stay long. It should not be loud that customer cannot communicate well or focus at merchandise

• Light: light plays a very important role to not only see the actual colour of merchandise but to highlight what retailer wanted to show more in terms of new products. People don’t want to browse in such sections of stores which don’t have proper light. 

• Touch: Merchandise should be in reach and not out of the arm. Customer visits the physical store to have touch and feel before buying otherwise E-com portal display is convincing enough to purchase. 

• Smell: the smell is closely connected with memory and emotion, So for a better recall value stores must have a pleasant smell. Smell has a strong impact on consumer behaviour. Now more researches are happening at fragrance to put the customer in the right frame of mind.

• Taste: if the retail format is of food then a tasting table should be organized. for Apparel and accessories, trial rooms will serve the purpose.

• Support with signage: these help customer to inform about sale promotions activated in stores. Signage helps to direct customers to a different area of the store where the seller wanted them to head. Signage also supports to the group product. If you have bought a winter longs coat signage may direct you to snow boots or Cap. This help to increase bucket size.
• Create Hierarchy: Contrasting height and depth grab mass interest. Fixture and racks can be strategically placed. The Pyramid principle can be applied to stop the customer’s eye for long.

• Refresh Layout and Display: this technique is used to engage customers who frequently visit your store to buy something new. By changing display customer get a chance to see that merchandise which he didn’t notice during their last visit. It brings freshness in store

• Communicate the layout or make a blueprint: this helps to evaluate date which layout has worked best in terms of sale performance. This will help to repeat layout for better per square feet sale return. 

Since the past 10 years, most of the modern retail formats are focusing to enhance customer experience by putting more efforts at visual merchandising. It improves business productivity, helps in cross-sale, increases bucket size and generates faster turnover. To enhance visual experts are using different props, space design, fixtures, layout and mannequin. New trends of visual merchandising should be implemented from time to time to upgrade stores.