The Retail Doctor
Clean living
I often wonder why some fashion windows look so good and others are a bit confusing and hard to understand. Is there a cure for designing good window visual displays?
Now this is a subject that I could really write pages about, however to be brief, the Retail Doctor golden rules for designing and building impressive visual merchandising windows are as follows:
* Less is more. The strong powerful statement often makes the most powerful statement
* Apples with Apples. Try not to dilute, by spreading your displays, as this weakens the statement you are making
* Simple is best. Some windows are just trying to occupy every available space within the window. Concentrate on the strong simple statement and it's okay to leave some space in the window.
* Keep your windows fresh. Change the windows as often as your merchandise story allows.
* Consider lighting. It is a powerful way to illuminate your merchandise and/or message.
* Look objectively. Consider the customer's perspective at all displays.
* Evaluate. Consider the display in terms of getting the message across. Look at it and ask yourself "why?"
* The journey. Your windows should be the start of the customer journey and the store lay out, shape, customer traffic flow and the presence of walls or pillars are all influencers to the journey.
* Links. Consider the number of window displays that have no cue or link to the inside of the shop
* Rule of thumb. Most attractive merchandising displays are frequently presented in one of four definite arrangement patterns: the pyramid, the zigzag, the step or the fan arrangement.
* Sales. A well-constructed display should act as a silent salesperson for your business.
Finally, we know that on average a shopper has three seconds to "get your story" by looking at your windows. A simple, powerful display is often the best way of commencing the journey of converting shoppers to buyers.
Keeping in touch
A friend of ours who has a similar fashion shop to us is always boasting about their database and how it brings them additional business.
Can you tell me what is involved with setting up and running a database?
Building a quality customer database and providing an appealing customer loyalty program can be a very low cost, segmented and clever way to build your business. Using information that customers volunteer to provide (when asked) at the Point of sale will provide you with rich information including:
Area of home address
Spending history
Their purchase history and frequency
Relatives, birthdays and product preferences.
Armed with this information, you can engage in a local marketing program that connects you directly to your customer preferences
The steps to get started include:
* Gather customer data at the point of purchase, either manually or through your point of sales system. Questions shouldn't be intrusive, obtain customer permission, and seek to capture some of the information above.
* Buy some database management software to start building your database. There is plenty out in the market and getting more and more inexpensive
* Don't wait for an enormous list to build, start segmenting your database and creating personalized and valuable mail out 'invitations' to your customers. Generating thank you and or birthday and anniversary
messages can also be very powerful - remember that keeping this database updated is very important as well.
* Measure your efforts and keep refining the success of your promotions by listening and adjusting based on the success of a local promotion and customer feedback.
The aim of a customer relationship marketing program is to focus your marketing spend; building long-term loyal and profitable customers who actively refer you to others. Soon those loyal customers will be signing up for more.