Abundant Display Techniques for Fall

If there is one word that expresses the mood of Autumn, it is 'Harvest'.
And that leads to Abundance - a very important concept in retail visual merchandising.

Your goal is to attract your customer's eye with a display that is full of product.

Product to discover, to look at, to investigate, and to purchase. 

(Don't forget your signage!!!) 

The best displays have two elements...
click 'read more' to find out what they are and how they work!

Successful Displays have two main elements: 
1. a 'lifestyle' or 'feature' area, 

where a grouping of products creates a mood, a theme, etc.  

2. an adjacent table or shelf unit
or shelves on a wall

that holds LOTS of those products - 

all neatly corralled or lined up, easy for a customer to grab n' go.

(in merchandising talk, that's known as "stack 'em and pack 'em" !) 

It is very important that both the 'feature' area AND the 'stock' area are always filled with product. 

Neat, clean, but FULL. 

 If you have a low amount of the items and can't fill it up, 

you need to build a smaller display and get a smaller fixture to put the stock on. 

Or you need to bring in some additional products, and cross-merchandise it into your theme.

This concept can apply to a voluptuous old-world style vignette 

or in a sleek, contemporary display...

It matters not whether you build it in a geometric grid form or a freeflowing arc. 

It matters not whether the fabric is draped in great swaths across the table, 

or hung vertically from above.

Any display of product, any theme, any style, in any store 

will benefit from having additional product easily available immediately adjacent to it.

I mean, I just loooove creating those lifestyle tableaux of spilling items, 

draped fabrics, and artfully placed floral accents. 

I really do. It's like a still life painting come to life. 

(Which, I know, kind of negates the term 'still life'...but anyway....)

The most glorious, opulent display won't sell your products on its own. 

It needs to be partnered with accessibility - 

otherwise known as shopibility!

Customers want to be able to grab a few widgets and head to the cash register - 

they don't want to have to extricate each and every item from a foofy display.

So make it easy for them...and for your sales staff. 

The bonus is, it's also MUCH easier to re-stock products in this format
AND your display might just stay intact and pretty for longer than five minutes.

The display above is staged to be viewed from front AND back.

Several metal towers in the grouping hold the wine en masse,

 while the tableware takes center sage on the wood fixtures.

An abundance of product, ideas, and inspiration will reap a harvest of sales this season...

(Photos copyright DWK 2006 at Columbia Winery)