You’ve got the perfect location and the best products, but when it comes time to begin merchandising, some retailers face an element of analysis paralysis. With so many retail merchandising options and ideas at your disposal, it can be challenging to figure out the best retail merchandising ideas that will lead to sales.
Here, we’ve gathered up some of our favorite retail merchandising tips and tricks for store layouts and displays that will enhance your customer’s shopping experiences – and increase sales right along with it.
Use Color Theory in Your Store Displays
Retail merchandising relies on ensuring the correct items are in front of the customers willing to spend money on them. However, store display techniques run so much deeper than just setting everything up on a table or shelf. As humans, we’re naturally drawn toward color harmony and attractive hue arrangements.
Consider your displays and what mood you want to project with them in retail merchandising. Use bright colors to show off sweets and candies, especially for summer or spring-themed floorsets. Specific colors evoke luxury, relaxation, excitement, romance, or productivity. Your window displays and signage will benefit from color coordination.
Learning a thing or two about color schemes, like monochromatic, analogous, and complementary colors, will go a long way toward setting up window and store displays that attract the eye.
Cross Merchandising
Cross-merchandising is the best way to raise average dollars per transaction. It comes down to predicting your customers’ needs without them verbally communicating what they’re looking for. Sometimes, they might not even know what they’re looking for, and effective cross-merchandising techniques in your store layout will help make those suggestions without you, or your customer service teams, needing to say a word. In addition, how you arrange your retail merchandising product displays encourages shopping patterns.
What To Cross Merchandise
For example, you can cross-merchandise party supplies with candy; someone planning a big get-together is sure to be looking for fabulous favors, too. Candy also looks excellent in product displays with greeting cards or other giftable goodies for people looking to put together a quick, sweet present for a friend or loved one.
Makeup products for similar parts of the face also pair well in the same area. Consider merchandising eyeliner, mascara, and a shadow palette together to help customers create an entire makeup look. If you’re selling tools and hardware, consider what items your customers might need for particular projects and keep them all in close reach to create a one-stop-shopping experience.
Direct Customers Where To Go
Your store layout will determine how impactful your displays are. If the floor is unintuitive and products are indistinguishable from each other, you won’t be curating the best possible shopping experience for your customers. The best store layouts will lead customers to what you’d like them to see. When they get there, they want to be presented with displays that give them a clear picture of what they can expect to find on it.
Branded product displays and merchandising units are an eye-catching way to let customers know where to look for what they want, and what they can anticipate once they get there.
When setting up product displays, make sure that prices are always visible and clear. If you make your own signage, ensure that all writing is legible and that the same font families are used. Using the same fonts in your retail merchandising will help with brand recognition and visual cohesion. It should also be large enough to be seen from a reasonable distance.
Create a Tactile Shopping Experience
While a simple row of items on a shelf might be clean and formal, today’s shoppers are looking for something more hands-on. Arranging your products in a way that feeds the senses creates an interactive shopping experience that will keep customers engaged and increase sales overall.
Engage the Senses
Demos are a big way that you can let customers try before they buy. Leave a sample of a product out where they can pick it up to inspect it with more than just their eyes. How will it be used? If you’re selling candles, keep one open and lit, if you can do so safely and in a place where it will always be supervised so shoppers can smell it, even from far away. If you’re selling pens, ensure that there’s one out (alongside a pad of paper), so they can test it out.
While letting customers have a taste of candy is the best way to help them find their new favorites, that might only sometimes be an option. So instead, let your employees sample some of the candies. This way, they can use personal testimony to tell shoppers precisely what they think of it. What’s the texture like? Or the flavor? What does it pair well with? Shoppers will appreciate the personalized approach to buying their candy.
Besides, your employees will definitely appreciate having a sweet treat to nibble on!
Choose What’s Best for Your Store
You know your store’s inventory better than anyone else. How you choose what to sell will determine how all of these other ideas and techniques will fall into place. For example, would your customers like the quick, convenient nature of grab-and-go bag of candy, or would cute cups stacked alongside wines and coffees create a better gifting experience?
Choosing the right candy for your store can be tricky. Keep in mind what your customers like, and keep track of what sells the best. Once you’ve got that metric, apply it to your retail merchandising! If you have a star product, find creative ways to work it into your product displays, so customers know exactly where to find it. You can also do the reverse. If something’s not moving as well, it might be in the wrong spot.
If you’re ready to start selling delicious candy in your store, either cross-merchandised with other items or proudly in a display of its own, Candy Club has everything to suit your wholesale candy needs. Retail merchandising comes easy with our attractive displays and plenty of tasty candy to fill them with.
