Retail Christmas Displays

Christmas is the perfect time to bring in new customers and entice your old ones to revisit. Your displays can say a lot about you. They should be the focal point of the store’s entrance and should be continually updated throughout the store and throughout the season.

Christmas displays can be a lot of fun and draw a lot of attention. Your use of lighting and decoration can be anywhere from simple to extravagant and help you to communicate a message. Customers draw their first impression within three seconds of seeing your store, so keep that in mind as you design and implement your holiday display plans.

It is important to get it right the first time. You don’t want to stray from your store’s image, but you do want to draw attention. Start with your store’s theme, feeling, and target audience. Are you going for a more sophisticated feel, a modern look, or trying to attract bargain shoppers? Make sure that your display doesn’t take away too much from your merchandise. If you have a bold display, then the merchandise should be at least as bold so that it doesn’t get drowned out.

Mannequins are perfect for window displays and for making bold statements that don’t take attention away from the merchandise. In fact, mannequin displays have proven to be the most effective merchandising tool available to retailers. They show how clothes look when they are worn, which beats out hanging on the rack any day. But, they actually do a lot more than that, which allows you to use them when trying to influence your customers’ behavior.

Mannequins have the unique ability to make customers subconsciously make a connection with the clothing. People can walk by garment racks all day and never image wearing the clothes that are hanging there. They might notice a design that they like or an interesting fabric. But, if they don’t consider how the clothing will make them feel and what other people will think of the clothing, then they are not likely to ever make a purchase. Putting a female mannequin or a dress mannequin in the window will make people passing by instantly imagine themselves wearing the clothes. That’s half the battle. Add some accessories, lighting, scenes and scenarios, and you’ve got them also imagining what it would be like to wear the clothes and what other people would think of it.

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.

Using Gridwall and Slatwall for Holiday Displays

The holiday season is here and it’s time to get ready for it. Retail owners look forward to this time of year when people get out and buy lots of gifts. This is often the time when businesses make their profits for the year. Preparing for the season means decorating and arranging your showcase displays in a way that attracts customers and makes them feel compelled to buy.

People want to feel a certain way when they find that special gift. You can encourage them to feel that way by getting your store in the spirit. I’m not talking about simply putting up some Christmas lights, although that can help with your lighting scheme. I’m talking about bringing up fuzzy warm feelings in those that you want to spend money in your store.

First, do a little research. What age and gender are your best customers? Talk to them to get a clue as to why they decided to make a purchase. Did they simply like it? Or did they go into detail about how it made them think of someone and they just had to have it? The more that you can get customers to gush about why they decided to purchase something, the more insight you’ll have into how you can use that information in your store displays.

Having gridwall or slatwall in your store is a very big step in the right direction. These wall displays are the most versatile of all store displays. You can arrange and rearrange, strategically placing items where they’ll be seen and admired. Additionally, you can space things out in a way that makes your supply always look full and never like you might be out of sizes or like you might be discontinuing an item.

With gridwall and slatwall, you can hang bars, pegs, hooks and shelves to mix it up a bit. You never want a straight line display. It’s boring to the eye and seems very cold and impersonal. Varying degrees of depth and texture makes a display enticing and pleasing to the eye. It keeps the brain actively involved in looking and considering. This is exactly what you want.

Draw extra attention to your showcase displays by utilizing spot lights that shine on your slat wall or gridwall. You want to create the same sort of effect with lights as you do with your shelves, pegs and bars. Depth and dimension are added when you use special lighting. Colors look better and textures of clothing are amplified.

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 gridwall store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.