Have you ever taken a second look at the store because of its great window display? How about the way the lighting compliments the dress and blocking of the mannequins? Do you ever wonder why that specific store always stands out among the crowd?
Nowadays, whenever you shop at a store, it’s not always about the products we intend to buy. We find the best shops to roam in because we always choose the experience accompanied when buying specific merchandise. If you’re asking how this kind of requirement is being addressed by stores here and there, they have a strategy called visual merchandising.
If you really want to know what visual merchandising is: it is defined as the art of great placement and extreme utilization of space to gain higher revenue for your business. It’s like baiting customers to come to your store and enjoy the experience that your product and business have to offer. More so, the more time they spend inside a store, together with its great and unique ambiance, buyers would likely end up buying your products.
Remember that everything you see at a store is not accidentally placed in their respective positions. It requires a lot of analyzing, prioritizing, color testing, proper placing of garments and tools, and a whole lot more to piece a cohesive setting where your merchandise and customers are at play. This is why a visual merchandiser is much needed for the job. It requires a specific level of expertise rather than just deciding where to put what and vice versa.
Also, a lot of techniques can be said in terms of visual merchandising as business owners and customers have different tastes and preferences when it comes to visual styling.
You don’t want to be too odd and unique, nor be too plain and boring. You need to find the balance between these two, at the same time, bringing your own kind of style in the picture for customers to remember you.
Being too extreme might give you the advantage of being remembered, but it can also overwhelm your customers and overpower your merchandise. On the other side, being too basic and predictable can make your brand indistinguishable from thousands of businesses in the market.
Tips on effective visual merchandising
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
With the rise of ecommerce in today’s era, it might be overwhelming to start your online venture since not all are experts on building their brand online, more so, in implementing visual merchandising techniques to gain customers and profit.
If you’re looking for ways on how you can level up your site and brand with the use of visual merchandising, then you are in the right place. Here are some tips & tricks on how you can ace your game by knowing the sacred rules of a visual merchandiser:
1. Know your brand
A crucial step before designing and perfecting the overall look and feel of your shop is that first, you need to wholly and fully know your brand. This is the first step towards achieving success. Your brand should speak up for itself, whether or not accompanied by trends and aesthetics that may help you gain customers. Without fully knowing your brand, it’s hard to stay track of what you want your brand to accomplish and what goals you want to reach in the days to come since you will be carried away with trends that normally stay for weeks or months.
Try setting up a vision and mission board, as well as a 5- or 10-year plan to keep your goals true to the brand’s heart. Your brand is the sole reason for your merchandise venture, so it’s best when from the start, you already have a strong foundation.
2. Utilize colors
Colors have wondrous abilities known to mankind. It can affect your mood, amplify your emotions, make you hungry, change your attitude, calm your spirit, and many more. Numerous studies have been conducted on how color has been affecting our behavior and decisions during the past years.
According to a study of the University of Winnipeg in Canada, people tend to decide within 90 seconds of their initial interactions, and that about 62 to 90 percent of the assessment is based on colors alone.
The fashion industry is known for being the best in its game when it comes to visual styling. Colors in fashion aren’t, by any chance, just a trend. Color is the main anchor of fashion. You dress up to make a statement, influence people, boost confidence, or even display your status or social class thanks to colors alone.
Simply put, color can drastically dress a whole place up. Like how people use colors in fashion to express themselves better, colors can affect the way how your brand expresses itself through visual merchandising.
In business, color plays a role in forming attitude and insight. Going with strong colors can make your shop look vibrant, while light colors can make a place soothing and calm. Color can affect a customer’s emotions and feelings when they are predominantly surrounded by it, so it’s always good to think about the right color scheme we can serve them when visual merchandising.
3. Study your target market
You can’t score high sales if this whole time you’ve been serving the wrong demographic. Knowing what your audience prefers, likes, dislikes, as well as trends that go along with them can help you gain customers and profits in the long run.
The main goal of visual merchandising is to catch the viewer’s attention to make them buy the product or merchandise. When you know how to tickle and get in the heads of your buyers, you have the advantage of connecting with them better. With this kind of strategy, buyers will feel that they are understood in terms of their needs, their wants, and why should they purchase your item.
More so, this creates richer layers of experiences for you and your customers since you try to understand them best and allow them to connect well with your product through visual styling. So, do remember that studying and researching your target market is always the best strategy to keep you floating on a pool of thirsty competitors.
4. Strategize elements
Elements play a vital role as well when it comes to visual merchandising. Proper arrangement of products in the display isn’t easy as pie since you need to value the space they’re taking up in your store, as well as the negative space caused by their placement.
Effective space utilization is what keeps people appreciate the shop’s features and identity—starting from the accessibility of products, the flow of merchandise, navigational aspects, etc., these all contribute to the reason why customers would want to come in and buy something at your shop.
You can also make use of other elements that cause more customer walk-ins like adding a touch of music that will resonate the whole room or even having ambient odors to keep them coming in and would leave the store in such a great mood and experience caused by your shop.
The way these elements are all put together makes it a cohesive place for customers seeking comfort and a stress-free experience with the aid of visual merchandising.
5. Make it a worthwhile visit
People nowadays tend to value experience more than the product itself. Catering a mobile-obsessed generation has never been easy since having something to share and post on their feeds is their kind of social currency.
With the vast majority of stores springing up now and then, it’s hard to keep ideas fresh and innovative. Your ideas about the layout should always have the need to inspire, amaze and surprise customers because they are always in for a unique experience.
This is why certain shops offer an immersive experience with the help of introducing playful elements in the scene.
An example of this is when a shop that sells gym equipment offers free trials to test their products. This kind of strategy gives buyers the chance to test your product, and in return, helps you keep customers in and entertained.
On the other hand, some business owners build a coffee shop inside their stores to keep customers in for some time, with the agenda of providing them time to think of whether to buy their merchandise.
How visual merchandising is done online:
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
With the world still on lockdown, most physical shops were put to a halt. But you don’t have to worry about launching a business during this pandemic thanks to the internet.
Today, ecommerce is the new trend, and with thousands of available online platforms in the form of catalogs, blogs, websites, etc., you can still strive and continue to launch your business even if you’re at home—ultimately phasing out the brick-and-mortar stores that you have grown fond of.
Likewise, these online platforms have revolutionized our thoughts about marketing and visual merchandising. As said earlier, you have the internet as your guide in choosing the best platform for you, your business, and your customers.
Without further ado, here are some steps on how you can still promote your merchandise online with these visual merchandising 101 tips:
- Make a striking homepage
Image taken from Strikingly website
In physical stores, the window is the face of the shop, and in today’s scenario, your homepage is the window of your shop. Having a well-built, organized, and eye-catching homepage is a great strategy since it is the first thing that customers will see when they want to know more about your product, services, or your overall business.
Make sure that people can already get a sneak peek of your brand as they try in getting to know more about your brand identity. Keep their eyes entertained and at the same time, your sophistication must lead buyers to ask for more.
When choosing the best platform that can help attract potential buyers, Strikingly is the best fit for you. Strikingly has features that make digital marketing easy for you. You can choose from a vast collection of templates that you feel best suits your brand and style.
- Organize your product/service
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
After making your homepage, you now have to organize the overall display and look of your products. Strikingly can definitely help you in this situation since it has a Product Showcase feature that allows you to show a detailed view and description of what you are selling.
Using this feature, your users would have an overview of what you are selling, which could convince them to finally buying your merchandise. To have a Product Showcase on your website, follow these steps:
- In your site editor, look for the “Add New Section” button.
Image taken from Strikingly website
- Click on the “Product Showcase button”
Image taken from Strikingly website
- After that, you can now add your products by clicking the “Add Product” button
Image taken from Strikingly website
Remember that the key to having a great arrangement of products is to keep it clean and crisp so potential visitors would find it easy to navigate within your website.
Also, always put the products in the limelight. No one wants to stay at a website where the products are concealed from all eye-catching features and colors. The product must always lead the way and be the number one priority.
Aside from that, you should also try to experiment with techniques on capturing and displaying your photos since we do not want to bore our customers from the predictable layout.
The good thing about Strikingly is that it is specially designed for you to post a wide variety of sizes when it comes to photos. You can also categorize your products or services by clicking on the right product type. After that, all you need to do is upload your media, write a name and description, the price and number of stocks, and you’re all done. Easy as that.
- Promote your business
Image taken from Strikingly website
Online business calls for online attention, and the best way to promote your business is by having social integration. Promoting and linking your website to your social media pages and platforms can contribute to a boost in sales.
At Strikingly, linking your portfolio or websites to other social media platforms has never been easy since its user- and mobile-friendly features make navigating on your website a whole lot easier.
You can also know more about your visitors by using Strikingly’s Site Audience feature. Other than that, you can also keep in touch with your blog subscribers by sending them to send newsletters to keep them updated on your business products or services.
Why visual merchandising is important in a business?
In this age, it’s all about making visually exciting memories for your customers since we tend to shop less yet pay more for the experience.
Following these visual merchandising 101 tips would dramatically change the atmosphere of your shop and is also the best strategy. Keeping up with the trends is also a good idea since people will always have something to look forward to.
Always keeping customers impressed may be a strenuous job. Since retail is about making profits, and making profits is about making customers happy and impressed, visual styling can help you achieve everything in between.
Want to start your online business venture today? Head on to Strikingly today and register for free.
Strikingly is the best fit for anyone exploring, adapting, or even just starting on making an online platform. You don’t need to be a tech expert to build a website because Strikingly has it all for you.
With thousands of users worldwide, you definitely can keep up with business owners and grow your business by building a website in just a matter of minutes. Launch your dream website and choose a Strikingly template today.
