Tip of the Week + Bonus!

Track your sales by category and use the information to help you when merchandising and buying.  It’s very valuable information.

© Anatoliy Babiychuk | Dreamstime Stock Photos | Image Link

When re-merchandising your store or purchasing new stock, it's so important to make educated decisions rather than taking shots in the dark, making guesses, or buying based simply on things you like.  Being informed will help you make better business decisions and help to prevent the need to clear out aged or stagnant inventory.

Track your sales by category, either using your POS system or keeping written records (contact your POS service provider or technical support to find out how).  You could do this weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.  

When it comes to visual merchandising, you can use your category sales in interesting ways, too.  It can help you to allocate the proper space and placement to best sellers and help you to beef up displays and promote weak sellers.  Also, if you know there's an item or category that people are shopping for in particular or coming in for, you can place it in a key area towards the back of the store to get them walking through.  Hopefully they'll see a great item they wouldn't have otherwise thought of on their way there!

Bonus tip to make up for the technical problems we had last week...

Emergency preparedness is key.  It's important to have a plan for every type of emergency that could come your way.

Check out this Red Cross page for some great info.

Happy selling!

Want the convenience of receiving the tip, sent directly to your inbox along with even more info?  Click here to sign up!

Looking for more info, articles, and interaction? Follow us on facebook, twitter, and Pinterest, too!

Tip of the Week

Don’t have enough money for brand new fixtures?  Check Kijiji or Craigslist for used fixtures, interesting furniture pieces, and anything else you can use in the store.  Then paint them all the same colour to unify them in the space.

I, personally, tend to use Kijiji the most.  You can search the item you're looking for exactly or just browse if you're not sure!  By doing this, you'll be able to find all sorts of interesting items that nobody else has.

Be sure to check the quality of the piece before making your purchase.  Check joints, give it a wiggle test to make sure it's sturdy, and make sure that it's solid wood and not a laminate/particle board product so that you can re-finish it as you please.

Once you've gathered your unique items, give them a few coats of paint or stain in the same colour to unify them within the store!

Tip of the Week

When purchasing for your store, make sure you have a plan.  This could include a financial plan, merchandising plan, theme plan and so-on.

 

This week we have the Alberta Gift Show in Edmonton and if you don't go in with a thought out course of action, it can be overwhelming.  You could wind up blowing your budget, choosing the wrong product mix, or simply getting caught up in all of the excitement. 

Make a plan before you go to any buying show.  Give yourself a budget based on past sales and buying and consider giving yourself a budget by category as well. 

Another thing to think about before choosing your product is the physical space in your store.  What merchandising are you planning for the next few months?  Are there any specific stories or themes?  What holidays and events are coming up?  What exciting things are on your marketing calendar?

Good luck and happy selling... and buying!

Have you got questions for Melissa? Check us out on facebook, twitter, Pinterest, the flourish website, or send Melissa an email.

Using the 5 Senses to Your Retail Advantage

As human beings, most of us are lucky enough to have five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.  This week’s Flourish tip of the week was all about stimulating as many as possible of those five senses to engage your customer to the fullest.  Getting our senses going is a way to create an exciting and memorable shopping experience for your customer.

Sight

Sight is arguably the most important of the five senses where shopping is concerned.  Customers are attracted to merchandise, first by looking at it.  The overall look and feel of your store can also have a huge impact on your sales and overall image!  

This is why visual merchandising is a career choice for many and why Flourish Design & Merchandising offers the services that we do!  Stimulating your customer’s sight is what draws them into the store, attracts them to look more closely at product, and most often entices them to buy.  Sight is one of the major ways in which we make product selection.

In order to make the most of the visual appeal of your store, ensure that everything is neat, tidy, and in its place.  Clean visual merchandising is often the most effective type.  Combine major displays and features with basic merchandising.  If everything is a “feature” the customer won’t know where to look first.

Don’t forget to include your logo!  Reinforcing the brand identity in-store is so important!

Last, but not least, if you’re not sure of the most effective way to merchandise your store visually, then hire a professional, someone who is educated and trained in visual merchandising.

Sound

Sound can have a huge impact on how we feel while we’re shopping.  The music in your store needs to feel just right to your target market.  Listening to the wrong music choice can have a very negative impact as can music that is too loud or not there at all (it makes customers very uncomfortable).  Know your target market and make your listening choice accordingly.

Consider listening to satellite radio or an mp3 player hooked up to the stereo system as well as music on CDs and other forms of non-traditional radio music.  Avoiding the commercials, talk, and occasionally poor reception is a good thing!

Here’s another thought when creating atmosphere…  What suits the merchandise that you’re selling right now?  Is spring time fast approaching and do you sell outdoor product?  Consider something with nature sounds such as birds or water to make the customer feel more “outdoorsy”.  Also know that holiday music during the holidays is an absolute necessity.  While, as retailers, we often get tired of hearing it, it is proven to increase holiday sales by getting customers in the spirit.

Taste

Okay, so you might be thinking…  How are my customers going to taste the merchandise?  This one may only apply directly to a few of you, but the rest may be able to apply it on occasion!

When you sell food of any kind, customers are more likely to buy if they get a taste.  This is actually the case by a large margin!  You will, most likely, more than make up for the cost of giving away samples in profit you make.  Not to mention, customers feel more engaged and may even buy more of other products in the store!  I always semi-jokingly tell my clients: “If you feed them, they will buy.”

Now, if you don’t sell food?  I don’t recommend tasting soaps, shirts, candles, or any other product!  Instead, on special occasions, feed your customers samples from a nearby local eatery. It’s a nice gift to give to them, you can advertise it on social media and hopefully that local eatery will be willing to sponsor at least a portion of the cost of providing those samples.

Touch

Touch rivals sight for being an extremely important sense!  If a customer can’t hold and feel a product, they generally won’t buy it.  Take a look at the customers milling about your store; they’re always grabbing things, stroking them, and picking them up, aren’t they?  That’s a good thing!

Customers may consider an item based on the way it looks, but they won’t make a final decision unless they can hold it in their hands and feel the texture, finish, etc.  The most important thing when doing your visual merchandising, is not to impede this urge.  Remove from plastic wrap, packaging, and boxes as much as possible.  At the very least, offer a sample of merchandise that is out of the package for customers to pick up and feel.  

In the case of high theft items, some of them simply must be kept under lock and key, often in a display case.  Just ensure that this display case is well-lit and that there is always someone available to pull out merchandise to show interested customers.

Smell

Smell can be a touchy subject!  What about allergies or people with different tastes?  What about conflicting scents?  These are all valid concerns.

I think that the guiding factor with scents is that less is more.  Avoid overpowering scents that will take over the entire store.  Customers can’t escape from them if they’re allergic and there’s a possibility that it will conflict with another scent in the store.

The main thing with scents is that you want to avoid having bad ones in store which is sometimes a possibility, especially when unpacking new merchandise.  Consider using a gentle air freshener or a scented product you sell.  I especially recommend something that generally eliminates odours as opposed to trying to cover them up.  Try to also remove the source of the bad smell right away!

Another creative way to use smells is by using something (again gentle) that works with the theme of a particular display. Think about a display of margarita products, for example. You could add the soft scent of lime by including some fresh limes in the display or even just their zest!  Cinnamon is popular during the holidays and pumpkin or apple pie during the fall. Grocery stores do this, too. It’s like torture when you walk in to pick up some fresh fruit or veggies in the morning and can smell fresh bread or cinnamon buns baking!

Lastly, make sure that scented product, such as candles or soaps, is available for sniffing.  If you keep all of a particular product under wraps, customers will get frustrated by not being able to give it a sniff before making a purchase!  Be sure to include a tester for lotions or sprays of any kind so that customers can give them a try!

The important thing to remember when creating a sensual store (in the purest sense of the term), is that we’re all human beings and operate in similar ways!  If you appeal to common human urges and make shopping easy, you will be successful.

Have you got more questions about the senses?  Get in touch with Melissa of Flourish Design & Merchandising today!  To get updates for new blog posts, like us on facebook or follow us on twitter!

Bright and Beautiful, the Importance of Colour

Colour plays and importand role in our everyday lives, but how much time to we spend consciously thinking about it?

As retailers, it's important that we do this all the time, keeping colour top of mind.
Why is colour so important?  We have natural physiological reactions to colour as well as behavioural and cultural reactions.  Almost everyone has a favouite colour, there are colour trends for fashion and for home, and we associate certain holidays with certain colour schemes.  There are people who dedicate their entire careers to colour.  You can find colour experts, behavioural psychologists that study colour, and even an international colour authority!

Obviously you can't please eveyone in one shot, so how can you apply colour to your store in an effective way?

First is colour blocking. 

By gathering items of a same colour together, you can create a display or section that's easier to look at, allowing the customer to gravitate to colours that appeal to them.  It works with regular merchandise, sale merchandise, or even just odds and sodds that you're trying to gather together for an appealing look.

In a display or a section, you can create a colour story, choosing specific colours to pull together for a certain look.  Then block those colours together in certain spots and combine them in others for a great overall look that's easy for the customer to shop.

Secondly, is colour trend.

Many people are very on trend as far as what is in this season and those colours will sell best for you.  So how do you know what's going to be in next season when you're ordering? 

One option is to consult with the International Colour Authority, an organization based in the UK that uses a panel of colour experts to determine future colour trends with great accuracy.  This is an expensive option, but will give you the most accurate colour forecast, far in advance. 

Are you like most of us and don't have the extra cash to spare for a colour report?  Your suppliers may have already subscribed to the international colour authority and be well aware of colour trends for the upcoming seasons.  As they are product developers and importers, it is important for them to be onto trends before everyone else! 
Lastly, use magazines.  You won't always get the information far in advance, but they're full of current trends and trends coming in the near future.  They're even known to set trends, of course!  Whether it's fashion, gifts, or home decor, look to your favourite magazines to guide you in the right direction and keep you on track.  Looking for a higher tech option than magazines?  Have a look at sites like Pinterest for trends!
When all is said and done, your intuition will help guide you in the right direction, just remember that strong colour blocking often leads to strong sales and an organized looking store.  And...  When in doubt, remember that customers shop first by colour, followed by everything else.  When in doubt, consult an expert to help you make the best of your store.

Seasonal Merchandise

This week’s Flourish Tip was all about looking to large chain retailers to find out when to display seasonal merchandise.

Think of every holiday or end of season as a big expiry date looming over the merchandise.  After that date passes, the merchandise is no longer profitable to you.  You either need to sell it at a large discount or pay someone to pack it up and then have it take up storage space which you are also paying for!  Not to mention, it eats up inventory dollars for that holiday or season during the next go-around!

With that being said, earlier is often better when it comes to seasonal merchandise and your profits.  Obviously, this is within reason, as you don’t want to have Christmas merchandise in your store in July or Valentines merchandise hanging around in December, but you want to make sure that you’re giving your merchandise ample opportunity to sell before it’s “expiry date”.  

This is where large chains come in handy!  They have the research and experience behind them and it’s worth checking them out for a cue as to when to put out yours!  Visit a nearby mall for stores with similar offerings to your store and make notes about when merchandise is going out!

Here are some guidelines that will help you in the next few months.  If you have fall merchandise, it should be out for customers to view starting in August.  Even when the weather appears nice, people are thinking ahead to upcoming seasons and many want the newest and latest buys!  Christmas related merchandise should go out by November 1st.  If you are a retailer that doesn’t sell much Halloween related product, then once Canadian Thanksgiving is over, it’s your time to get Christmas in place!  Yes, many customers will comment that it’s early, remind them that it’s only a couple of months away!  And many will balance those customers out and start purchasing gotta-have-it items right away.

If you’re still not sure when to get things out, hire an expert!  And remember; adjust your ordering according to when merchandise needs to be in-store after your reconnaissance mission to the mall.  You’ll be happy you did!

Happy Selling! Need help creating amazing seasonal displays? Call or email us today!