While most of the tips in this section are intuitively obvious, we still see “the rules” being broken all of the time in stores. We hope you use these tips to your advantage because, ultimately, all that matters is that your customer is served better. By helping them find what they need, what they want and what they didn’t know they wanted easier and faster, we all win.
Store Display Tip
Your Customers Don't Like Getting Bumped
We know it is your goal to maximize profit in your store by maximizing the amount of product you have displayed for purchase. However, did you know that shoppers don’t like to be bumped when they are shopping? Ensure you have enough space between your aisles and displays for comfortable passing and moving.
Free-standing Displays Should Be Shop-able
Free-standing displays won’t sell product or make your store any money if they are not shop-able by your customers. Ensure you keep all sides of a display unencumbered and easy to get to. Your customers will reward you by throwing more into their basket.
Magazine Display Tips
Familiarize Yourself With Magazine Content
Don’t always assume the cover treatment on a magazine reflects what its content is. By taking a few minutes to flip through those somewhat ambiguous looking magazines, you might realize you’ve been merchandising the magazine in a place that is quite different from where it should be.
Vanity Fair magazine, for example, is not a fashion magazine as the covers often suggest, but a magazine about popular social issues.
Un-clutter Your Magazine Rack
A magazine rack is already busy with various different banners, pictures and colors, and customers don’t like clutter. Fanning any particular title of a magazine gives the rack a cluttered look and makes it more difficult for your customers to find what they are looking for.
We cannot stress this enough, do not fan the magazines on any row of your magazine mainline. Block out each of the titles so the left hand of the magazine is clearly showing. You'll notice that most magazines feature their logo in the left corner, so even if you are forced to overlap different titles on the lower rows of your mainline, a customer can still identify his or her favorite.
Book Display Tips
Help Older Customers Reach Their Favourites
Ensure the books that appeal to your older loyal clientele are merchandised so that they find what they are looking for and can avoid bending. Your older customers frequent your store and are likely heavy repeat shoppers, however they may have physical challenges, as their bodies just don't work like they used to. Bending down may be a problem for them, so merchandise titles that appeal to them at a height that won’t cause discomfort.
Your Customers Enjoy Reading The Same Genre
While no one likes strict Plan-O-Grams for displaying books, it is common sense that consumers looking for one type of book would like to easily locate the other books in the same category. Therefore if you categorize and display similar books, you increase the chances for multiple purchases from one consumer.
For example, at any one point you likely carry multiple books that would be considered “Chick-Lit”... if they’re not on the Bestseller list, display them together and test how they do in your store. Not only does your customer know the selection you do carry, they can choose between titles, or even better, choose to buy a few.