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.

Holiday Child and Teenage Mannequin Displays

Are you looking for ideas for bringing your mannequins to life this holiday season? Good for you! So many retail stores simply throw a Santa hat on their mannequin and say that they’re done. Getting your displays ready for the holidays should be a fun and creatively satisfying experience. Your efforts are more beneficial if you actually create scenes that evoke holiday feelings of wanting to give in your customers.

Here are a few ideas that you can use in your retail window displays. Use them as a guide or simply as inspiration when designing your showcase display.

A lot of parents will buy clothing for their children during the holiday season. Parents will want to see their children in a certain light. If you create a display that makes children look precious, loving, excited or happy this holiday season, you are sure to pull at the heartstrings of the parents.

Use child mannequins to create Christmas morning scenes. Lighting is important here because harsh lighting and fluorescent lights can detract from the feeling you are trying to communicate. You can even have your window display box dimly lit with lamps, electric candles, or Christmas lights. This is the time of year when you can really increase your sales, so go all out on your displays. You can build a staircase coming down with the children peeking through the bars. They could spot Santa playing with the puppy that he is leaving for them. Another idea is to communicate a child’s excitement when they are opening a gift. Or, you can show a child sleeping peacefully by the fire.

Here are some ideas for older children. Teenagers are really like young adults and often buy presents for each other. So, you really don’t have to target parents to have an effective teenage window display, but you do want to keep parents in mind. Teenagers are really into accessorizing, so use a lot of your accessories like purses, hats, and jewelry when you set up your mannequins.

An idea involving teenagers could be something like a female mannequin opening her locker to discover a small wrapped gift from a secret admirer. You can have a group of male mannequins hanging around, seemingly uninterested, but one boy is secretly looking at her. You can also set up a “best friends” scene. You can use a dress mannequin or two to show two girl friends giggling and whispering. Behind them, you can place a shy looking female mannequin and a male mannequin passing her a gift.

Whenever you come up with an idea, ask yourself if it purposely communicates a feeling. Is this a feeling that your target audience is looking to find when they shop in your store? If so, then your mannequins can make a big difference in your sales this holiday season.

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.

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.