In an era of constant change, retailers are slowly understanding that their physical stores are not all about product sales. Customers nowadays get to choose if they want to buy goods online or from a physical store. If they choose to shop on the high street instead of the convenience of their own home, they expect something more from their shopping experience. As you might have already read, the future industry trends are all about AI, augmented reality and several other impressive tech installations. We believe that these types of visual merchandising techniques are great and would definitely attract more customers but what about the small retailers or the independent shops with limited budgets?
Thankfully, there are several cost-effective visual merchandising techniques that you can invest in and increase your sales, footfall and consumer loyalty.
Visual Salience Bias
Barbara Kahn, a distinguished professor in the University of Pennsylvania, stresses that both manufacturers and retailers should account for a “visual salience bias” and display products in an easy to process way. She emphasises that by reducing the size of the assortment presented, reducing information intensity, making sure each item is relevant to the assortment context, and carefully thinking through the spatial positioning of merchandise, retailers can increase their sales and customer loyalty.
Our advice is to choose minimal display solutions with clean lines, sharp edges, neutral colours and bright spaces. In this way, your product will stand out and you will not hide it among bright colours and flashy decorations.
Spatial Orientation Matters
Other practitioners and academics also highlight the significance of the spatial orientation of merchandise presentation. They found that vertical orientation is much more effective than the horizontal and diagonal one. For example, a study showed that the vertical display of beverages resulted in more sales in comparison with the horizontal one. While, when they compared a vertical display of towers with a diagonal one, they found that the former had 90% more sales.
Turn the Lights on
Did you know that one-fourth of customers make an impulse purchase because of the lights? Using a bright light to showcase a product you highlight its special features, details and make it look important. To keep the running costs to a minimum and increase your product sales choose quality LED Lights. Bartuf offers a BARliteLED™ range of products specialising in retail display lighting. We observed that the display lighting can increase sales in diverse categories such as magazines, confectionery, wines etc.
Once upon a time…
Creating a theme or a story around your product display can bring more benefits than you can imagine. Apart from the visual aesthetic, well-made concept displays can trigger customers’ inspiration and imagination. Don’t forget that inspired and happy customers shop more! Therefore use your imagination and create a story relevant to your brand, your product and the season you want to display them.
Also, while designing display solutions for your product’s story, make sure you group all the items relevant to your featured product. Clustering is an ideal visual merchandising technique to increase impulse purchases and influence consumers purchasing decisions in general. However, only displaying complimentary products is not enough. Information about how consumers can use them or why they are superior is an extremely important part of your story.
Finally, the point is that visual merchandising display should be a fundamental part of your marketing strategy regardless of your size and turnover. By leveraging these cost-effective visual merchandising techniques you can increase your ROI and footfall even if your budget is too limited for advanced technology.
