Boutique Store Design

In a boutique, image is everything. Boutiques offer customers a unique shopping experience that is rich in interesting displays, decorations, and style. The theme of a boutique can be what brings customers back again and again. Creating an interesting theme is important, but making your boutique accessible, shoppable, and easy to navigate can be just as important.

Have you ever seen a store that looked really interesting, but then you go in and everything is crowded and messy? It can be a big turn-off. Unless I’m shopping a garage sale, then I expect everything to be visible when I look at a display. I want to feel like my size will be there if I like what I see. I like to get an idea of what the clothes and accessories will look like if I put them on, without having to spend all day in the dressing room. I don’t want to feel like I’m squeezed in with other customers, hunting through piles of clothes all day.

Your boutique store design should take the customer’s shopping experience into consideration. You can utilize certain rules of retail display to help you make the greatest impact. You know, being a boutique owner, that impressions are your biggest weapons. You want your customer to feel what you’re trying to convey with your store the second they lay eyes on it. This is, after all, what has made boutiques such a huge success this century.

People want to feel like they are unique, interesting, and important. This drives them to shop the smaller stores, boutiques, or handmade goods outlets. Make sure that your displays are creative and stay true to your store’s theme. Make your customers feel like they are important and like their happiness is your first priority.

Create displays using mannequins or mannequin forms to show them what unique items would look like if they are worn. Mannequins give you a unique edge when conveying a certain message. They help you to create more interesting, personal, and effective displays than you could ever create without them.

Making room for all of this interesting stuff may seem like a problem at first, but really you may have more room than you think. Utilizing vertical wall space can help you to make more room while keeping your displays nice, neat and organized. You can use something like slatwall to affordable and attractively make space on the walls of your boutique. Use slatwall panels in spaces that are oddly shaped. Use slatwall accessories to hang just about any type of item on the wall. You will love how versatile your slatwall is, and it will help you make room for all the displays that you can think up.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, slatwall and slatwall panels. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Visual Display Tips

Creating displays can help you to nurture your crafty side. The most effective displays always have a theme and seem inspired. Inspiring displays inspire customers to feel as passionately as you about the merchandise that you’re selling. Boutiques are famous for creating memorable displays that keep customers curious about what you’ll do next. Whether you run a boutique or larger retail store, you can use these tips to make your displays more interesting and effective.

1) Do some research before you begin. Surf the web, go window shopping, and look at magazines to get your creative juices flowing. You can get ideas that help you to decide on a theme or a focus for your display. Consider the merchandise, of course, but also think about color to set the mood, the season, the promotion, or the theme of your store. Once you get an idea, the rest will quickly come together.

2) Consider running your ideas past your employees. Give them a theme and ask them for their ideas. Sometimes your employees are your best asset because they see what grabs customers’ attention every day, out on the floor. Hold a contest to inspire your staff to be more involved in the success of the store. You may be surprised at how creative some of your employees may be.

3) Once you have your idea, decide on a budget. Remember that less is often more and you don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune on a display. You may want to buy a few key pieces for the display. Try to buy things that can be reused in the future so that you can get the most bang for your buck. Tables or racks that fold, props that inflate, and decorations that lay flat are easiest to store for future use. Mannequins can be customized to fit a lot of different types of displays and can stay in good shape for many years. Investing in this proven seller is never a bad move.

4) When setting up your display, keep balance and focus in mind. Start by setting up your focal point. Too many focal points will not draw attention like a central focus will. The focus doesn’t have to be in the center of the display. Good visuals are hardly ever perfectly centered. They’re often more interesting if they’re not. A customer may pass twenty window displays with centered mannequins and hardly notice them, and then the one that tells a story and isn’t perfectly centered will be the one to turn their head.

5) Use lighting, signage, whatever you need to draw attention to your focal point. You can even use more mannequins to direct attention to the focal point. Have them looking at the main character or feature in your display.

6) Make room for interesting visual displays throughout your store or boutique. Use slatwall panels and slatwall accessories to free up space on the sales floor. You can use the slatwall itself to create interesting slatwall displays. Using vertical space can help you to better manage your merchandise so that your displays remain the center of attention.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, slatwall and slatwall panels. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

The Uses and Benefits of Slatwall

Slatwall is has been one of the most popular retail displays for many years. It has a lot of uses, versatility, sustainability, and it’s an economical choice for small and large retailers alike.

Slatwall and slatwall accessories can be used to display everything from bolts to wedding dresses. Once installed, the slatwall panels are used as anchors for hooks, shelves, hanging rods, and other display accessories. The cost of the system is considered affordable and can be offset by the extra profit from merchandise that you can carry once you have it.

Slatwall is a great way to make use of a small space, which is why it is so popular in boutiques. It comes in a variety of colors and finishes to compliment the theme of the store. It’s great for taking advantage of vertical space that may otherwise go unused.

Getting your merchandise up high makes it more visible to customers. They can easily see what you carry, whether they’re in the store, or just passing by. By hanging clothing and other items flat against the wall, customers can see what everything looks like without rummaging through crowded racks.

Displaying your clothing and other merchandise on a slatwall system helps you to keep things nice and neat. If customers aren’t unfolding, taking things off the hanger, and looking for their sizes, then your displays will stay looking nice. They will have more direct contact with your employees, because the workers won’t be so busy straightening up after everyone.

Another benefit of slatwall is inventory control. Displaying merchandise up on the wall, instead of crowded on the floor, leaves less room for shoplifters to do their dirty work. Customers have to ask for their size from an employee, so it’s less likely that they will try to steal anything.

Freeing up space on the floor of your retail store or boutique gives you more options for effective displays. You can make room for mannequins, which are proven to be the most effective merchandising tool out there. You can even use mannequin torso forms right on the slatwall.

You, your employees, and your customers will all appreciate the neatness of your slatwall displays. They create space, allow you to bring in more merchandise, and save you money in a lot of different ways. They’re so versatile that you can change them up at any time, simply by moving the hook, shelf, or bar over to a different spot. Making your boutique or store look great has never been so easy.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, slatwall and slatwall panels. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Keeping a Retail Space Organized

It can be difficult to keep smaller boutiques and retail stores orderly and neat. As merchandise comes in an out, seasons change, and promotions come and go, things can get messy and cluttered. You need to come up with an effective and efficient way to manage your store or boutique so that you don’t let it get out of control. Use these tips to keep things running smoothly.

Start with the basics. Your retail display systems should be versatile enough to accommodate changes that are bound to happen. Moveable shelves, adjustable rods, rolling garment racks, and shelving that can be reconfigured are must-haves in a retail environment; especially ones that need to conserve space.

One cost effective solution is slatwall. Slatwall panels can be joined to create unique free-standing displays that are extremely versatile. Slatwall panels are also useful for creating displays in areas that are normally wasted, such as underneath stairs, or where the ceiling comes in low.

You can use slatwall panels to create division between the departments or sections of your boutique or store. They don’t just create dividers, but provide you with places to hang bars, shelves, hooks, or other things that turn your dividers into useful displays. You can even use slatwall in your storage areas to create a room that is extremely versatile and can go with the flow year-round.

Slatwall as a wall display is the most popular way to keep retail spaces organized. It utilizes the vertical space in the store, which frees up a lot of floor space for creating more dramatic, less cluttered displays out on the sales floor. Keeping the sales floor decluttered helps you to watch for shoplifting, and makes the store more inviting to your customers.

Another benefit is the way that slatwall keeps your displays more visible. Instead of having your clothes crammed together in small racks, you can have them facing out towards the center of the floor. You can easily display clothing and accessories together, making it easier to merchandise smaller items.

You will also need garment racks for the sales floor. You can choose boutique garment racks to help add to the décor of your business. Remember that the store fixtures you choose can impact how the customers view you. A cheap, rickety garment rack can translate into a customer thinking that your merchandise is of a low quality and not worth the price that you’re asking.

If your store is organized and neat, you can more efficiently run it. Boutiques especially need to keep things organized so that each unique item can get the full attention that it deserves. The appearance of your merchandise can have a big impact on customers and their decisions to buy. Keep your garment racks neat and stocked with each size. Choose a garment rack or organizational system like slatwall, to keep your store organized year-round.


About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, slatwall and slatwall panels. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Tips for Starting Up a Boutique

Many entrepreneurs are running their own businesses with little or no training. It seems that with a little research, many self-starters are seeing great success. Boutiques are a popular form of business to start. Most boutique owners aren’t simply looking to make some money, but have a drive and a passion to sell their unique offerings to the public. This is a good thing.

To be successful in a business, you must have desire. You have to care about what you’re doing and be willing to put in many thankless and fruitless hours of hard work. It takes stamina and determination. Do your research and you could be on your way to owning a successful boutique. Follow these tips to help you stay focused on your goal.

Try not to get swallowed up by mounds of paperwork and details swimming in your brain. Your initial goal is to get your “big picture” plans down in writing. This involves detailing what you want the store to look like. Write down the major categories of inventory that you want to offer. Add in what you want to be unique about your store. Define your competition and what you will do to be different. You really need to pinpoint a target audience. Decide who you will be marketing to, who you won’t be marketing to, and why.

Having these basic guidelines will help you to stay focused on your goals while you get other details squared away. Once you know what you want to sell, decide on your prices. You may have to visit other boutiques, check online stores, check auction sites, and make your decisions based on your competition.

Making your prices too low can make customers think that the products are of low quality. Try to stay in the range of pricing that you see when you research. If something is going to cost you too much and you aren’t going to see much profit from it, ditch it and move on to the next product. Remember that it’s not all about what you want to sell, but what the target market wants to purchase.

Once your inventory and pricing is squared away, you need to look at facilities. Choose a facility based on location, size, traffic opportunity, and price. You can afford a better location if you choose to go with a smaller space. Dealing with a small space is easy if you use the correct retail supplies and accessories. For example, you can use slatwall panels to turn small spaces into attractive displays. Slatwall is easy to install and helps you to make the most of the space that you have. Using slatwall in a boutique gives you lots of display options without breaking the bank.


About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, slatwall and slatwall panels. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Boutique Merchandising Tips

Merchandising in a small boutique can be challenging, especially if you’re new to the business. You want your boutique to look fresh and inviting while maintaining its unique charms. However, problems arise when you want to carry more inventory or expand on your merchandise. You need to accomplish both to be successful.

Carrying more products can help you to bring in more money. It can bring you customers that you didn’t appeal to before. It can keep your current customers interested and coming back time and again. Keeping your product line interesting and profitable is definitely a priority. Having the inventory on hand to satisfy your customers and hold up during promotions and busy seasons is also important. So what do you do if you want to turn more profit, gain new customers, and expand if you are in a limited space?

There are a few ways that you can accomplish this. You need to make space so that your sales floor isn’t overcrowded. Too many products in one area can make your boutique look crowded and uninviting. You won’t sell more simply by squeezing more in. You can invest in garment racks that stand taller to give you more room. This helps you to take advantage of vertical space. However, if racks stand too tall, it can make it difficult to keep an eye on your store when you suspect that someone is considering shoplifting.

Another way to take advantage of vertical space is on your walls. You can use gridwall or slatwall systems to display your items vertically without sacrificing attractiveness. There are many benefits to using gridwall and slatwall.

One is the manner in which they display your products. Instead of your shirts, coats, and dresses facing each other, they can hang facing outward. This type of visibility allows customers to shop with ease. They can easily see what you have to offer without digging through crowded clothing racks.

When you’re ready to add more inventory, the versatility of the grid wall or slat wall will amaze you. You can squeeze things closer together without making them look crowded. You can make unique spaces for new inventory with very little effort, simply by moving the hooks around.

You can also display your accessories right beside the outfits that you think they look best with. By displaying your items on the wall, you can free up floor space to display ensembles on mannequins. Mannequins are the number one selling tool in the retail industry and using gridwall and slatwall will allow you to take full advantage of them.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, gridwall and slatwall store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Dress Up Your Boutique

The holidays are a perfect time to get your boutique looking out of this world. You’re going to have a lot more traffic than normal and you need to make a good impression. These steps will help you to keep things fresh, impress your customers, makes sells, and showcase your merchandise.

1) Make sure that your clothing racks and displays are kept nice and neat. People’s first impressions are important. You don’t want them to feel like you don’t care about the way your boutique looks. Make an effort to constantly straighten racks and stacks of clothing so that it looks presentable. This also helps to keep the clothes wrinkle free. Use nice hangers, like wooden hangers, to keep clothing separated on the garment rack. Little touches like this will keep your store looking fabulous.

2) Keep your clothing displays stocked. People think that you are about to put something on clearance if the rack is looking lean. Studies show that people bypass racks that are not stocked because they either think that something is wrong with the clothes and you are no longer going to carry them, or they think that their size is likely not there, so they don’t want to waste their time. During the holiday season, especially, you need to keep the inventory coming. If you notice something selling quickly, make sure that you have plenty of stock on hand to keep that display full.

3) Keep it fresh. People will often visit a store more than once during the holiday season. Keep it interesting by rearranging your displays daily. An easy way to do this is to use mannequins. Your mannequins are an easy way to keep things changing while helping to make sales. They are bar none the number one most effective merchandising tool on the market. They show people, at a glance, what items look like when worn. This serves many purposes. Customers don’t have to try on something to see that they like it. It draws attention to feature displays. It personalizes outfits, making it easy for customers to imagine themselves in the outfit.

Using a dress mannequin or female mannequin designed for dresses makes a huge difference in the way that dresses are viewed. Test out the theory by putting a different dress on your dress mannequin every day and see how the one on the mannequin outsells the rest every time. Women especially imagine themselves in clothing. They want to know how it will make them feel, not just how it looks, so mannequins posed correctly help to drive that feeling right into their consideration, boosting sales and the impression of your store.

Keeping things organized and using your mannequin displays to help sell certain items is a great thing to focus on this holiday season. Stay on top of it and your boutique may have its most successful season yet!

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, gridwall and slatwall store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Gridwall and Slatwall Systems Can Help You Save Space

Boutiques and retail stores are often short on space. How many times have you said to yourself, “If I had the space, I could do so much more with my business.”? Sometimes it’s not that we actually need a bigger space, but that we need to learn to better utilize and organize the space that we have.

Gridwall and slatwall are the most popular, cost effective items on the market for utilizing vertical space in a retail setting. But, there are more benefits to using one of these systems than you may realize.

Slatwall and gridwall panels are both fairly cheap to install. It is generally recommended that you have a professional contractor do the job to be absolutely certain that the wall panels will hold up the weight that you need them to. Check with your insurance company before you attempt it yourself because they may require that a professional contractor do it and guarantee the work.

Once installed, both systems are easy to keep clean and neat. Shelves, hooks and hanging bars are easily moved about and both slatwall and gridwall can be simply wiped down with a damp cloth when needed. Slat wall panels come in a wide variety of colors and styles that are sure to match your décor. Grid wall sections also come in a few different colors and finishes that can help you to set the tone that you want in your store.

Gridwall and slatwall allow you to conveniently and easily move displays around with very little effort. This is such a useful aspect in the retail environment where needs are constantly changing. The versatility is unmatched by any other retail display. You can quickly switch from summer to winter, from sweaters to shoes, or even from jewelry to power tools. The possibilities are truly endless.

Gridwall and slatwall both allow you to put clothing and accessories on the wall instead of in your floor space. Not only does this save you from having an overcrowded sales floor, but it also allows you to coordinate your displays to make more sales. Let’s say that you are selling general apparel, like jeans, shirts, hats and jewelry. Normally these items would be hung on different racks around the store. But, with a grid wall or a slat wall, you can hang them facing outward and next to each other. You can even use torso mannequin forms to display the outfits in their entirety without using any more space.

Using your gridwall and slatwall to your advantage can save you on rent and power, but can also make your store or boutique easier to shop in. Customers appreciate being able to see what you have without digging through racks and crowded displays.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, gridwall and slatwall store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Rules of Window Display

A good window display should distract customers from whatever they are doing and grab their attention. It only takes a second to make a first impression. Dress up your window displays with these rules in mind and you could be attracting new customers and encouraging return visits before you know it.

1) Make a good first impression.

Your window display is your best chance at making a good first impression. Our instinct is to rely heavily on first impressions. When meeting people, it is hard not to judge a book by its cover. But, we shouldn’t because the person may be having a bad day or something of the sort. For shopping purposes, we do judge the book by the cover, and we should. If a retailer wants our business, they need to convey to us what they have to offer and why we should be interested.

2) Communicate your purpose.

Use your window displays to show the customers why they should enter your store. Make sure that you target your audience, not only to get the shoppers that will spend money into your store, but also to show potential customers what style of clothing you sell and for what price.

3) Allude to pricing in your window display.

Giving cues to your audience about price is very important. If your clothing is very expensive or high end, then your window display should communicate that. This helps people to determine if they should go in or not. Attracting the wrong customers will have them coming in, turning their noses up, rummaging through everything, and then spreading the word to their friends that you are overpriced. Specifically targeting those that are looking for items in your pricing range will help build a quality customer base that only spreads good word-of-mouth advertising for you.

4) Give a good sampling of what your store offers.

Don’t just show your latest and greatest. Showing off what’s new is a great idea, but make sure that you don’t limit yourself to just that. Accessories can account for a huge percentage of your profits. Plus, many shoppers are not looking to spend a lot, but they might want to check out your purses, jewelry, hats or sunglasses. Use these items to draw in more customers.

5) Make people see how they want to feel.

People buy clothing and accessories not only to clothe themselves, but also to send out a message or feel a certain way. Pay attention to how your customers feel when they purchase your clothing. Do they feel elegant, hip, relaxed, friendly, edgy or sexy? Portray the feeling that people are after in your window display. The best way to have people associate feelings with purchasing your clothing is to utilize mannequins. Be creative and make sure that people are seeing something that makes them want to feel the same as the mannequin in your showcase.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail display cases including mannequins, mannequin forms, gridwall and slatwall store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.