Improving Retail Displays

Sometimes a display looks nice, but for some reason it just isn’t effective. If you are dissatisfied with your retail displays, or if you’re just curious about how to make them better, then ask yourself what needs do your displays fulfill. Customers have quite a few things in mind when they shop. Some are subconscious and others are not. It is your job as the store owner, merchandiser or manager to make sure that you are making the customer feel at ease by hitting these major areas of concern.

Customers essentially have to trust a retailer before they will buy something. You are making promises to them before they even walk into the store. This is why your store should be set up to target certain shoppers and turn others away. You’re promising that if these things appeal to you, then you will find things inside that you will like.

For example, if you have a dark store front with big heavy doors, then customers can assume that you have high priced inventory inside. If you have lots of lights and huge signs, they can expect to find good deals and low prices. Mannequins can certainly help you here. Use them in your store window, not only to show customers what clothing you offer, but to help set the mood.

Mannequins are great assets when it comes to communicating to customers. If set up effectively, they can show customers how certain clothes can make them feel. They help customers to immediately imagine themselves in the clothes and how that would make them feel. This kind of prepares their minds for shopping, having them subconsciously consider things that they wouldn’t have before.

You can also use mannequins to handle the social aspect of buying clothing. If you have more than one mannequin interacting or showing some sort of emotion to each other, then customers will instantly imagine how their friends or peers will view them if they are wearing the same thing.

Once inside the store, you can continue to impact how a customer thinks. This can be difficult if you simply have garment racks filling the whole store. A more effective method of retail display is to use slatwall or gridwall to display your items.

Slatwall can be used to make all of your merchandise not only fit into a small area, but face outward so that each item gets your customers’ full attention. It also raises things up to eye level or higher so that merchandise can be easily seen from anywhere inside the store. You can use mannequin forms or mannequin torsos to display how items look when worn directly on your slatwall. Finally, slatwall panels help you to create displays in interesting areas of the store where you normally wouldn’t have room for a clothing rack.

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 Mannequins Used for Networking

Boutiques have a lot of creative freedom when it comes to creating a showcase in their store. Mannequins make wonderful additions to a unique boutique’s displays and can be used to encourage customers to participate in networking for your business. You can use them in so many ways that the possibilities are truly endless. Here are a few creative ideas for you to make the most of the showcase mannequins in your boutique while encouraging customers to network with you and other people on social web sites.

A showcase display that uses mannequins is more of an attention-grabbing focal point than just a way to show how clothing looks when it is worn. To showcase something, you need to consider location, lighting and other creative elements. Many stores and boutiques create this kind of display in their entrance or in their window displays. But, you can use them all over your store to grab attention and keep it. This can be useful for drawing customers into areas of the boutique that get less traffic.

One idea is to have mannequins lounging around the store wearing your merchandise. If you have the space, you can place couches, chairs, tables or other furniture in different areas. Position mannequins on the couches, as if they’re just hanging out there. You can have female mannequins on the phone or powdering their noses, sitting on the couch. People will stop and look in surprise because they will initially think that they are real people. This kind of positioning will get more attention than a mannequin simply standing in front of a garment rack!

Another couch idea is to have the mannequin sitting and smiling with one arm on the back of the couch. When you see customers laughing at the cheesy grin on the mannequin’s face, you can ask them if they would like for you to take their picture posing with the mannequin. You can get the e-mail addresses of the customers and send them the funny pictures with your logo on the photo. The customer will then, most likely, post the photos to social networking sites and give you good exposure and free advertising.

Another idea is to use your mannequins as decorations. Dress forms (or dress mannequins) are sometimes produced in a vintage style. These are a lot like human shaped cages. You can use them to display clothing, but you can also use them in more creative ways. You can stuff the hollow inside with flowers, colored paper, packing peanuts, whatever you think is interesting. We saw an idea at blisstree.com for using a dress mannequin as a place card holder at a dinner party. You could do something similar, encouraging your customers to place their business cards on the dress mannequin for a chance to win something.

Coming up with interesting ways to create a showcase or to network with your customers will keep them interested in coming back to your store. People want to be inspired when they shop in boutiques, so make sure that you do not disappoint!

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

Bringing Life to Retail Mannequins

Mannequins can be one of your greatest selling tools or they can sit and collect dust. Make sure that you are utilizing your mannequins and letting them bring life to your window displays.

The trick is to really give them some movement. You can dress them in your latest fashions, but if they rarely change positions then they won’t attract any attention. Mannequins have long been recognized as the number one selling tool when it comes to store displays. There are a few reasons for this.

The first reason is rather obvious, they help customers to quickly see what garments look like when worn. For flowing, delicate fabrics, using a mannequin is a must. On a hanger, some clothes just look very limp and uninteresting. But, on a mannequin or even a torso form, the clothing is suddenly given shape, depth and texture. So, instantly you’ve improved the appearance of the garment simply by displaying it differently.

Giving your mannequins movement will help to draw the eye. What we mean by movement, is to make the mannequins seem like they are in motion, or engaged in some sort of scenario. This may not be totally necessary for every mannequin in your store, but for your window displays or feature displays, it really does make a difference.

For example, if you are promoting back to school wear, then the mannequins should be doing more than just wearing a back pack. Think about what customers are looking for in back to school clothes. Parents may be looking for nicer clothing at a reasonable price, while students want to feel like they fit in. Try to anticipate all of the needs that the buyers will be looking to fulfill. Children’s mannequins in this case, may be wearing well-made clothing, but participating in a social scene, like hanging out around the lockers. Customers are subconsciously influenced by the types of feelings they get when looking at a display.

Another example is formal wear. Girls looking for prom dresses could be influenced by mannequins that are engaged in a romantic dance. Or, they may be looking to have a good time with their girlfriends, and could be more influenced by other girl mannequins admiring their dress. Come up with a theme that will help your shoppers envision what it would be like to actually wear that dress and experience what the mannequin is experiencing.

There is power in giving personality and movement to your mannequins. Most shoppers know within two seconds of looking at a garment if they are interested or not. Mannequin displays help to hold that interest and tease the thought processes that customers go through when deciding whether or not to make a purchase.

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.