1. Fashion Promotion
Visual Merchandising

2. Objectives: Explain the importance of visual merchandising
Describe the two main areas of store layout
Summarize the aspects of merchandise presentation
Describe the components of in-store displays
List the advantages, disadvantages, and types of window displays

3. The Importance of Visual Merchandising
Visual merchandising is the physical display of products in the most attractive and appealing ways
Purposes are to sell products and promote store image
Should always try to be different, new, and creative

4. The Importance of Visual Merchandising
Provides information
Gains attention
3 dimensional & real
The extra $ spent on visual merchandising is usually quickly returned in additional sales.

5. Store Layout interior arrangement of retail facilities
Selling areas
(75%-80%)
Where merchandise is displayed and customers interact with salespeople
aisles, counters, fitting rooms, merchandise fixtures, displays
Sales support areas
Customer services and all other operations
restrooms, cashiers, gift wrapping
Selling areas have.
Sales support areas –
Floor Plan – drawn to show selling floor vs sales support areas

6. Store Layout Grid layout See handout
One or more main aisles with secondary aisles intersecting
Efficient use of space, good sight, security, uninteresting atmosphere
Maze layout
Free-flowing, unbalanced placement of fixtures; allows shoppers to weave through displayed merchandise
Interesting but selling space is lost
See handout

7. Merchandise Presentation
The ways goods are hung, placed on shelves, or otherwise made available to customers
Shoulder-out
Only one side shows
Face-forward
Hanging garment so full front faces viewer

8. Types of Fixtures Most common types of fixtures Showcase Bins
C-rack or half-circle
Four-way, quad, or four-arm
Rounder
Showcase
T-stand, two-arm, or two-way
Wall-standards and brackets
waterfall
Showcase

9. Interior Displays Displays should: Stimulate product interest
Provide information
Suggest merchandise coordination
Generate traffic flow
Remind customers of planned purchases
Create impulse sales
Enhance the store’s visual image

10. Interior Display Locations
Should be chosen to maximize merchandise exposure
Just inside store entrance
At entrances to departments
Near cash/wrap counter
Next to related items
By elevators and escalators
At ends of aisles
Open-to-mall areas

11. Displayed Merchandise
Should be current
Represent styles and lines
Should be well stocked
In demand
New (inform customers of what is available)
Encourage additional purchases
Promote current theme
Look good on display

12. Grouping Displays One-category groupings Related groupings
Highlight a specific kind of item
Skirts, children’s dresses, holiday sweaters, shoes
Line-of-goods displays, “vendor statement”
Related groupings
Ensembles or coordinates
Showing customers that more than the feature item is needed
Tennis outfit + visor + racquet + balls + bag
Theme groupings
Particular setting, event, holiday
What is the difference between one-category grouping & theme grouping?? What would be in one and not the other
Variety or assortment
Unrelated items all sold in the store
Lower-priced retailers

13. Lighting Overlighting – washed out Underlighting – not effective
Floodlighting – ceiling lights to direct light over an entire wide display area
Spotlighting – focuses on a specific area, targeting items
Pinpointing – narrow beam on a specific item

14. Props Functional props physically support or hold merchandise
Mannequins, stands, pedestals, screens, panels, or forms
Decorative props
Used for mood or attractive setting
Artifical flowers, bicycles, seashells
Structural props support and change displays
Boxes, cylinders (usually hidden)
Decorative and functional prop

15. Signage Variety of signs may be used to inform customers
Counter signs
Posters
Hanging signs
Banners
Flags
Elevator cards
Easels
Might include prices, sizes, styles, features, store logo, etc.

16. Display Evaluation Effective sales appeal? Coordinated with store ads?
Help to locate goods?
Signage legible and easy to understand?
Signage gives best selling points?
Draw customer through store?
Clean and neat?
Changed frequently?

17. Window Displays First contact customer has with store
Can stimulate curiosity
More opportunities to sell merchandise
Can be expensive to design, set up, and maintain; need props, staff, and space
Another problem can be glare of glass

18. Types of Display Windows
Enclosed
Full background
Ramped, elevated, or shadowbox
Semi-enclosed
Partial background
Open
No background, open to store interior
Island
4-sided glass, often in lobbies
Enclosed window; full background

19. Do You Know . . .
How might displays in a discount store differ from the displays in a more expensive apparel store?
What criteria would you use to select merchandise for display in an island window?
PICK ME!!!

20. Things you should know..
Most aisles are 3 feet a part. In more expensive stores, they may be 4 feet a part.
The DownShift Factor
The faster you walk, the more your peripheral vision narrows and the longer it takes to slow down your shopping speed

21. What we know…
Humans walk like they drive.
Decompression Zone-empty area inside the store. Never put anything of value in that zone.

22. Invariant Right Theory
Upon entering a store the shopper will invariably and reflexively turn to the right.
What we should do…
Customer interaction with any product or promotion displays in the Decompression Zone will increase by at least 30% once it’s moved to the back of this zone, and even more if it place to the right.

23. Butt Brush Theory
“Brush, bump or jostle a woman on the behind when she stopped to look at an item and she will bolt.” Malcom Gladwell of Paco Underhill’s Butt-Brush Theory.
What we should do is wide the aisles.

24. Getting your Customer to Buy More..
The chances that shoppers will buy something are directly related to how long they spend shopping.
How long they spend shopping is directly related to how deep they get pulled into the store.

25. What you should do…
Place destination categories in the rear of your store. This forces the customer to go deeper into the store.

26. Tables Invite Touching which leads to unplanned buying.

27. Keys to Increasing Impulse Items Sales…
Adjacent to register and “within reach”
Adjacent to destination products
Flexibility to change the mix of impulse items frequently