5 Clever Ways to Display Merchandise in a Gift Shop
Visual merchandising is all about how you present your products to the outside world. Each brand, industry, or independent retail has its own unique, best practices when it comes to showcasing their products. Some opt for a sleek minimalist approach, while others prefer to fill their shelves with endless possibilities.
Whichever approach you choose, you need to ensure your merchandising strategy is aligned with the needs of your target customer. If not, you’ll miss a key opportunity to drive more sales.
At Christmas, the anticipation for festive display merchandising plays a huge role in customer experience, and for many shoppers, it’s where the magic season begins. How retailers display, group, and position their products, gifts and services, can have an enormous effect on how successfully they sell. When running a physical store, it’s important that you consider how to display merchandise in a gift shop. Consider our 5 clever ways to make the most of your space.
1. Understand your customer’s desires
Putting your customer at the forefront of each decision is the first crucial step you can take. Put yourself in their shoes, and take a walk around your store.
- What do you see?
- Where are your eyes drawn?
- Are there any distractions?
This is a great way to peel back the layers and see your store through different eyes and will help you to determine whether your displays are too chaotic, too sparse, or if they flow from one to another.
Like many visual sale techniques, the difference between fine and superior is in the details. As humans, we are incredibly susceptible to interesting visual elements; it’s in our nature to want to see, smell, touch and absorb all that is around us. That’s why you need to play to your strengths.
At Christmas especially, shoppers want the fairytale, they want to be fully immersed in the Christmas spirit. Having a top seasonal gift cleverly placed on a riser, block or plinth can be just the ticket to enable a potential purchase to stand out amongst a sea of other products. Customers need it to be easy, not overwhelming.
2. Create a focal point to draw in interest.
Once customers have been enticed to enter your store, it’s very important to develop a focal point. Creating a focal point helps customers navigate comfortably around the store, differentiate between different sections, and clearly marks out your key promotional products.
Ensure the product you want to be the focal point is in the centre or closest to the front. Create a glowing effect by lighting a product from below, or opt for a spotlight effect, where the light shines directly from an above beam.
3. Tell a story to hold attention
While it’s common practice to change your displays based on seasonality or holidays, a simple Christmas scene won’t quite make the impact you’re after. Look at John Lewis, every year we wait for their Christmas advert, each offering an engaging and heartwarming story that connects emotionally. That’s what you want to be trying to capture with your display merchandise.
People want to create connections. Great merchandising should portray clear, seamless storytelling through creativity and aesthetic elements, including lighting, layouts, and graphics.
Your display must speak to your customer’s imagination:
- What can your products do for your customers?
- How can they help them?
- How can they enhance their life?
- Use these answers to make your customers part of your story.
Why visual storytelling?
- Visuals increase message retention by 42%.
- People can make sense of a visual scene in less than a second.
- Attention spans are notoriously shrinking.
- 65% of the world’s population are visual learners.
4. Use colour to catch eyes
When it comes to displaying anything, colour is key. Colours spark emotions; they make people feel inspired, or happy, and they can bring comfort, warmth, and even calmness.
While vibrant, uplifting colours are sure to captivate your audience, you need to ensure the colours you use are appropriate for your desired scene and are in keeping with your brand.
5. Blend inspiration and shopping.
Successful retailers understand they need to offer more than just a great selection of products; they also have to offer the lifestyle that goes with it, too.
Ikea is a great example of clever display merchandising that blends both inspiration and shopping. Their mock-up rooms filled with staged furniture make customers feel at home instantly and inspire purchases through discovery.
