Visual Merchandising 101: How to Create Store Designs With High-Converting DisplaysWhen you're diving into the world of retail either througha pop-up shopor your ownboutique retail store, one of the key sales metrics you're going to want to focus on is "sales per square footage," which is the average revenue a retail business generates for every square foot of sales space.Essentially, your "retail space" has to be your most productive and most efficient salesperson, and how you go about optimizing your sales space for maximum revenue is to employ the art and science of visual merchandising.I can already imagine the grimace upon some of your faces upon seeing the word "visual," thinking to yourself that you're not creative, artistic, or stylish enough to make your retail space look good enough to lure customers in and persuade them to hand over their money for your products.Yes, the discipline requires a sense of aesthetic, but remember that it's also a science, which means that it's a tried and true method that has been studied with results to show for it, results that you can replicate and recreate for your own store.However, it's also important to recognize that the field of visual merchandising encompasses a lot of distinctive retail design topics and covers everything fromcreating the window displaya prospective customer first sees, tothe signageyou put up and thelayout you decide onto direct your traffic and a whole lot more.In this post, I'll be covering how you can go about creating effective merchandising displays in your store that not only catch your target customer's attention, but gets them to make a purchase as well. Let's get started.

Begin with Your Target Customer In MindKnowing your target customer inside and out will help you tremendously when it comes creating effective merchandising displays. I'm not just talking about being familiar with demographic data like their age, income, and education level, but digging a little deeper into theirpsychographicsand behaviours. In other words, targeting not just individual customers, but their lifestyles.For example, popular retail brand Abercrombie & Fitch is seen as having done bothan effectiveandcontroversialjob targeting its stores and layout to its target demographic of 18-24 year old "All-American," "cool kids." ThisReddit AMA by an A&F employeeis filled with insights on how the company creates its design and policies based on what they know both about their target customers and more importantly, their parents, for better or worse that is.Find Some InspirationThanks to the Internet you no longer have to wait around for that brilliant idea to hit you when you're thinking about putting together your next merchandising display. Instead, there are a number of invaluable resources available in the form of blogs, boards, and more. Some of the ones I recommend checking out are the following: Retail Design Blog Creative Window PinterestRemember that People Have 5 Senses, Not 1

It can be really easy to focus on just creating visually stimulating displays and forget about the other four senses, but the secret to creating an engaging and immersive experience is to create a multi-sensory experience or what's known in the industry as"sensory branding."Let's take a closer look at how you could go about doing just that: Sight:There are an endless array of visual cues you can play around with to communicate your message. From usingcolors for their psychological triggers, to leveraging lighting, symmetry, balance, contrast, and focus to direct and control where a customer looks and for how long, it's one of the most fascinating components of merchandising. Sound:The music you play in your store has such a profound yet subtle effect on how your customers behave in store. Depending on who you're trying to target and bring in, you can slow people down by playing more mellow music and causing them to browse, or playing Top 40 to communicate that you want teenagers in your store and so on. Touch:This one's probably the easiest to get right in that you need to simply remember to put your best foot forward and give customers the ability to touch, feel, and try out whatever it is you're looking to sell. Smell:Believe it or not, there's an entire science to what's referred to as"scent marketing,"with several studies and real-world case studies of global brands like Samsung, Sony, and Verizon applying it to their advantage. The reason being that smell is considered to be a fast track to the system in your brain that controls both emotion and memory, two very prominent factors behind why we choose one brand over another. Taste:This can work magic if you happen to be in the business of selling consumables, giving people the ability to taste and sample before they buy is the equivalent of letting people try on clothes, a general and effective best practice.Show, Don't TellBefore people purchase something they typically want an idea of what it will look and feel like. To accommodate this need you can set up your merchandise display in a way people identify with and could envision in their own home or on themselves.For example, the sales floor in furniture stores are set-up with displays that make it easy for people to envision how the same products could be set-up in their own homes,or kitchenware stores having their merchandize displayed like how it might look in a given kitchen and so on.Another prominent way apparel retailers do this is by creating policies that require their sales staff to wear the clothing they're selling. And of course, the most tried and true example of this would be the mannequin, who you could style according to your latest releases and style. This tactic gives prospective customers an immediate point of reference and as soon as they can envision your product on themselves or in their homes, you can consider it as good as sold.Group Like with LikeGrouping like products with like products will give your customers additional reasons to buy more items from you, but it also has a more utilitarian reasoning behind it, namely saving them time from looking around and trying to mix and match things. Its one of the reasons grocery stores will put dips right beside their chips, or peanut butter with jams.You can also think of it as creating categories, but you dont need to limit your creativity there, you can also create groupings within categories. That means having merchandise that might be the same color, price, size, or type together. The Rule of ThreeIn creating displays, most visual merchandisers will often refer to the rule of three, which means that when creating a display, try to work in sets of three. This means that based on how youre arranging your products, youll want to have three of them side by side, instead of just one. For example, if you were arranging things by height, youd have items that were short, medium, and tall.The reason behind this thinking is that our eyes are most likely to keep moving and looking around when were looking at something asymmetrical, because when we see some symmetrical or balanced they stop dead in their track.This also alludes to the "Pyramid Principle," where if you have one item at the top, and all other items one step down, it forces the eye to look at the focal point and then work its way down.Let Light Dictate Mood and Attention

This again ties into engaging your customers senses (see above) and guiding them to experience different moods and emotions based on your stores lighting. Whether they feel like theyre in a nightclub, a fashion runway, or right at home will depend largely on how you decide to use lighting.Using spotlights to highlight certain products is also a surefire way to direct attention and make sure people pay attention to your top products.Lastly, Don't Forget to Change It UpRemember that when trying to optimize your square footage for the most amount of sales, a scientific approach of formulating a hypothesis, executing on your idea, and then testing for results will put you in the routine of trying out new ideas and sticking with what works.With these tips in mind, go out and give them a shot on one of your merchandising display to see for yourself how you can increase sales through the way you display your products and create a more engaging experience.Seni dari Visual MerchandisingKamis, 21 Pebruari 2013 16:44Sektor ritel saat ini penuh sesak karena banyaknya pemain baru yang masuk per harinya. Keadaan tersebut sebetulnya tidak membuat pasar menjadi lebih besar, melainkan pasar dituntut untuk lebih cerdas atau smart. Maklum. umumnya konsumen sudah lebih sadar akan hal-hal yang baru..Konsumen yang loyal misal terhadap satu toko saat ini terbilang sudah tidak ada lagi. Kostumer harus dibujuk, diterima dengan ramah, dijamu dan dilayani agar mau datang ke toko.Lebih dari itu, yang dbutuhkan dan sedang menjadi tren saat ini adalah toko yang unik dan terbilang menpunyai ciri lain dari yang lain (Visual Merchandising) . Konsep ini sedang banyak peminatnya dan tergolong mampu menyedot perhatian banyak pengunjung.Visual Merchandising adalah kombinasi tanpa batas dari beberapa element seperti warna, tekstur, aroma, pencahayaan, rhytym dan konsep tata suara. Visual Merchandising adalah presentasi dari sebuah barang yang baik. Visual Merchandising merupakan titik pusat warna, aksesoris dan mempunyai sifat menjelaskan.Visual Merchandising saat ini tidak lagi hanya sekedar bagaimana membuat barang agar terlihat atraktif untuk kostumer. Lebih dari itu harus mempu menjual melalui suatu media yang bisa dilihat (visual). Visual Merchandising juga merupakan suatu cara bagi ritel untuk berkata dan mewakili mereka . Jadi maknanya lebih dari sekedar mempertunjukkan barang melainkan tujuan akhirnya adalah bagaimana agar barang tersebut laku dijual.Display harusnya bisa sangat menggoda pembelanja uutuk membelinya . Display adalah alah satu penarik perhatian seperti halnya sebuah gambar.Display tujuannya adalah untuk memperoleh perhatian pembelanja lewat image dan gaya. Sehingga pembelanja diharapkan membuat suatu statement dengan barang tersebut.

Agar Visual Merchandising Efektif Colour:Colour atau Warna adalah sangat efektif bagi sebuah display. Diibaratkan seperti jiwa dalam sebuah badan. Display yang mempunyai warna dan terkoordinir dengan baik akan membuat sesuatu yang lain bagi barang dagangan. Skema warna bisa dibuat silih bergati, mulai dari monokrmatik, anologous, komplementer dan ke netral. Repetition:Repetition adalah sebuah tema atau sebuah konsep yang mampu memberikan dampak kepada barang dagangan agar terlihat menarik. Scale:Adalah suatu ukuran yang terhubung secara abnormal atau yang kerap berubah sekejap/saat tertentu untuk mencuri perhatian pengunjung Contrast:Contrast dapat diciptakan dengan bantuan pencahayaan dan warna untuk menarik mata pengunjung Humour, surprise and shick:Element ini bersifar lucu dan sangat surelasistik. Shock atau yang sifatnya goncangan penggunaanya harus berhati-hati dan tidak boleh sembarangan, agar tidak menyinggung dan mengganggu pengunjung atau penonton. Rhytym and motion:Rhytym and motion adalah sesuatu yang selalu berpindah, bergerak sesuai kehendak atau bahkan juga bersifat statis untuk mencoba menarik perhaian penonton. Rhytym yang bergeraknya diam-diam dan dipajang langsung di produk yang dipertunjukkan biasanya mampu menarik mata pengunjung terhadap produk tersebut. Aromakita pada umumnya mempunyai pengalaman berhubungan dengan aroma yang berbeda dan bervariasi dari individu ke yang individu. Menghirup bau harum seakan-akan berada di dunia yang lain dan terasa membuat selalu rindu untuk kembali, segar, romantis dan trendy. Props and lighting:Penyangga dan pencahayaan yang baik dan efektif biasanya akan memancing ingin tahu penonton terhadap apa yang ada di display. Cahaya dapat menarik perhatian dan mengajak mata penonton untuk melihat produk yang terdapat di display.