Christmas is retail Ground Zero. This is where the rubber meets the road for retailers, with 30% of their annual income deriving from the Holiday shopping season.
That means you need to pull out the stops and give it everything you’ve got. One way to achieve the desired effect (record sales) is visual merchandising. While the term may cause the faint of heart to blanch, you’re a retailer. You’re in a sector which is not for the faint of heart to begin with, so fear not.
You’ve got this.
To get the most out of your retail store this Holiday Season with visual merchandising, there are some simple, cost-effective rules to follow. These are basic rules. You don’t have to be an artistic genius to make them work.
Bring the color.
Because it’s the Holiday Season, the first colors to come to mind are red, green and white. That’s all very well and good, but you can use other colors to create an arresting and beautiful display.
Stick to two colors. That’s the most effective strategy for using color in your visual merchandising efforts. Try hues not traditionally associated with the season. Lose the green and red, replacing them peacock blue, or magenta. Paired with white, these create tension and contrast which catches the eye.
Storytelling is powerful.
Your front window is the most traditional site to tell your shoppers and potential customers a story. That story is about the Holiday Season, your products and your brand. All these elements can work together to create a surprising tale which translates into sales.
Maybe your story is about Holiday stockings, hung with care. Your products are the gifts stuffed in them and your brand logo adorns them all. Or maybe your story is about Santa Claus’s cookies, left on the kitchen table for him to enjoy, in thanks for his Christmas Eve efforts. Those cookies may be gourmet biscotti, or they may even be soaps in the shape of cupcakes.
But the story’s the thing. Tell it without words and allow shoppers to walk into the tale you’re telling.
Create a focus.
Visual merchandising demands a thoughtful approach. Don’t overwhelm your shoppers with too much of a good thing.
Creating a hotspot which draws the eyes of your shoppers is a tactic which can increase sales by almost 230%. It’s effective.
Santa’s cookies or cupcakes (your products) are the focus of your display – not the table. What’s in the stockings is the focus – not the stockings themselves. When using visual merchandising during the Holiday Season, get your products seen in a whimsical way which speaks to the magic of this time of year.
You can get the most out of your retail stores this Holiday Season with visual marketing when you approach it as one of your customers. What do they want to see? Visual merchandising is for them, so think like them for great results.
Clip Strip Corp. is a leader in high quality retail POP display supports.