With the holidays almost here, shoppers are out and about, looking for "just the right gifts" to give. As a retailer, it's your job to organize your merchandise so that your customers can find what they're looking for easily, and can also discover new products they may not have thought of but will certainly want. Common shelving problems can thwart your attempts to keep merchandise organized, but retail display solutions can fix that.
There's another reason you need appropriate retail display solutions: your displays should be as attractive as possible so that customers not only find what they're looking for, but are drawn to new merchandise they hadn't thought of, merchandise they may not even know they want until they see it.
Common shelving problems:
-
Piles of disorganized clutter
This is a very common shelving problem for retailers. Even the best laid organizational plans can disintegrate when it's time to keep store shelves neatly stocked through the most harried shopping rush. The holiday crowds mean that customers are busy browsing and sorting through what you have to offer, only to leave it disorganized and in disarray when they're done.
Carefully thought out retail display solutions can help you fix that. It's often a good idea, for example, to set up specific displays that showcase individual items - sometimes in complement with others - while endcaps and other fixtures near the display actually neatly house the product in question. Keeping displays uncluttered will help customers see the product(s) in question as actually used, and it also means that your job is much simpler, since you simply have to keep supplies of the products neatly stocked in their nearby fixtures.
-
Crowds of shoppers without any means of traffic flow established
Your customers crave an enjoyable shopping experience even during the holiday rush, one that's to be savored. Nothing destroys holiday spirit faster than to have customers stumbling over each other as they try to shop, however. It's up to you to take charge and maintain an orderly traffic flow, and you can do it with retail display solutions. Customers can naturally, easily proceed from one department to the next as they browse through your offerings. To do that:
-
Establish a main traffic path that meanders through your entire store
Most people will naturally look to the left and then proceed to the right when they enter your store. Therefore, your main traffic path should proceed counterclockwise throughout your store. The path should be wide enough for people to pass easily without bumping into each other. Displays should be set up to attract attention to their respective departments and the products available there. With this set-up, customers are able to leave the traffic path easily and browse departments as they wish, then return to the traffic path at their leisure when they're done browsing to resume the rest of their shopping.
-
Make displays work for you
Retail display solutions have come a long way in the last few years. No longer are you simply limited to industrial grade shelving meant to hold merchandise and nothing more. Today, you can truly show off – and house – your merchandise in fixtures that are every bit as attractive and aesthetically appealing as the products they hold. Experiment with different colors, materials, and styles for the fixtures you buy, such as using real or faux wood shelving instead of simple steel shelving for a more elegant appearance. Doing so will make your store's interior more inviting and appealing, and will also draw customers' attention to the merchandise displayed so that they're much more likely to buy.
