Visual Merchandising

Adesire Bamidele

Adesire Bamidele

Contents  What is Visual Merchandising?  Purpose of Visual Merchandising  Different techniques of Visual Merchandising  What are Retail Outlets?  Types of Retail Outlets  Applying Visual Merchandising Techniques to Retail Outlets

Adesire Bamidele For this assignment I will be describing what visual merchandising is and also the different techniques used in different retail outlets.

Visual Merchandising and Its Purpose Visual merchandising is a non-verbal way of presenting a stores product and services, it’s presented in a way that will be appealing to customers and make them attracted to the products. You may ask why visual merchandising, there are various purposes of visual merchandising. It gives customers a more detailed imagination about a certain product. Visual merchandising also help customers select products by themselves in stores.

In Visual merchandising, there are different types of techniques that are used by retailers in order to make visual merchandising a good experience for their customers. These techniques can also increase the sales of products for retailer because the way they display their products can also make customers more interested about the products and leads to high sales for the retailers. Such techniques are; Micro merchandising, End Caps, Propping, Colour Merchandising, Vertical Merchandising, Horizontal Merchandising, Pyramid Merchandising, Consistency and Reputation, Stacking, storytelling or Cross-Merchandising, Technology, Lighting, Fragrance of Store, space and Theme Display e.g. special events or holiday. I will be explaining some of these techniques of visual merchandising.

Micro Merchandising This is when retailer’s changes the way they arrange different products on shelves in the middle section of the store in the order of what customers want the most.

End Caps This is when items are displayed in a way that would grab the eye of customers as they are walking around the store.

Adesire Bamidele Propping Propping is when items are in such a way that will make the display more exciting and interesting. For example in a toy shop, they may decide to put a big plane on the ceiling of the store and hang them up, these planes (props) are not for sale.

Colour Merchandising This technique of merchandising is displaying colours in order to enhance the beauty of displayed product, and the colours being used should equal the colours of the products.

Vertical Merchandising This is the arrangement of items in a retail store from top to bottom, this style of merchandising makes it a lot easier for customers to locate whatever they need from the retail store.

Horizontal Merchandising This is when items are displayed in a horizontal pattern. This merchandising techniques makes customers to move side to side in order to keep track of the display, so they don’t miss any detail.

Pyramid Merchandising This is when there is only one item displayed on the top of other items while the rest of the items in the display are one step down, so it sort of forms a pyramid shape. This technique also focus on products displayed.

Consistency and Reputation This technique is when items are displays in reputation in order to let customers eye read whatever’s on the displayed item faster.

Stacking This technique is when retailers get more items out in their store in order for customers to have variety of items to choose from.

Storytelling or Cross-Merchandising This technique make items displayed more interesting to see and also explains the point of view of the items displayed.

Technology This is more like a strategy that retailers do in order to advertise their products in their stores, for example you can put a TV in the store and advertise up-coming products.

Lighting This technique is mostly used on mannequins in order to make what they are displaying stand out and the lighting also enhances the mannequins and gives it more quality.

Fragrance of Store This technique is one that sort of triggers the customers’ behaviour into purchase, displayed items.

Some customer might like the smell of a store and with this the customers may decide to buy displayed items.

Adesire Bamidele

Space and Theme Display This technique is mostly used whenever there is any special event. They decorate most of their items with that particular seasonal event theme. For example Easter, the retail shop can decide to decorate items with Easter eggs or Easter bunnies to go with.

There are six different types of retail outlets; Department Stores, Discount Stores, Supermarket, Malls, Speciality Stores and lastly Warehouse Stores.

Department Stores These are retail stores that have a wide range and variety of products to sell to their customers. In a department store they have different sections of the types of products they offer to their customers for example, there are clothing sections, home appliances, furniture sections, varieties of different product sections. An example of a department store is House of Fraser as seen in the image below.

Discount Stores Discount stores are also retail stores that that have a large range of products but in this case they sell products to customers at a relatively low price compared to the normal market value. In a discount store they sell to their customers a narrow range and also quality in for different products, the quality of some products in a discount store might be a bit low compared to that of a department stores’. Such discount stores are 99p store, poundland and Aldi.

This here is an image of an example of a discount store.

Supermarkets This is a retail store that specifically offers and sell grocery products and in most cases household appliances and items. These items are placed and organized neatly in each of their departments and different visual merchandising techniques as well. In other words we can say a supermarket is a cutting-edge form of a small store that sells food products. Example of a supermarket is Tesco as they are the world’s third largest retailers.

Adesire Bamidele

Malls This can be described as a retail complex which consists of different stores, having more building can form a complex of different shops representing merchandisers, and this interconnects different walkways or in most cases escalators which makes customers in the mall to walk from different shop departments to another. For instance, Brent cross is a clear example of a mall, because they have different variety of shops of different departments.

Speciality Stores These are retail stores that on specify of a particular department, they only sell products that only relate to the department they are based on. Also speciality stores tend not to go passed the boundary on the products they offer and sell to their customers, they remain in their particular department and do not get passed the type of product they offer.

As we can see in this store (Ray-Ban) they only specialise in selling glasses to customers, they don’t go passed this the only thing else they might be offering to customer are items such as glasses cases, glasses cleaners and so on.

Warehouse Stores These are retail stores that offer products to customers in bulk and they also sell variety of products to customers. It also offers more discounts than a normal supermarket.

Adesire Bamidele Here I will be talking about only three types of retail outlets and also I will be explaining the different techniques they use for merchandising. The three retail outlets I will be talking about will be John Lewis (Department Store), 99p store (Discount Store) and finally Boots (Speciality Store).

99p Store (Discount Store) The 99p shop is a retail shop that offers variety of products to customer and their price are relatively low compared to that of a supermarkets. As seen in this image, 99p store have displayed some items on their window. Here they have used the vertical merchandising technique. This is really important because by these drinks and juices close to the sight of customers, the store is most likely to attract customers and sell the particular product that is being displayed. Also using the vertical merchandising technique can help the store to make customers interested in these products.

In the 99p store the also implement the end cap technique, where they display products in the middle of the store or at the end of the aisle, and the products displayed at the end of the aisle can be discounted. So not only will the product be at the end of the aisle but all price friendly to the customers.

In the 99p store, at the end of the aisle of home appliances and tools, the have place a prop there and what the prop is wearing is an overall plumbing wear and it was holding a drill as well. When the displayed items are being looked at the prop can bring excitement to customers, not only to customers but to the store as well. Also in the 99p store they use the reputation technique quite a lot of times, you might find this to be no help in the 99p store, but it actually does help customers read from the items displayed faster, and sometimes they do not have to close to the product to know what it is because the consistency and reputation technique has been implemented for easy access to displayed products.

John Lewis (Department Store) John Lewis is a co-operative retailer that offer a huge range of products and different sections of different product such as clothing, home appliances and even food, this is why they are called department stores. At John Lewis, in there clothing’s sections, they make use of three techniques at the same time, Mannequin, lighting and the pyramid merchandising. The mannequin here is a really good technique in order to persuade customers in buying products put on the mannequins, customers might like the outfit that is put on the mannequin and the tries its own to see if it looks good on them. So basically the mannequin is to persuade customers to buy products placed on it. The other technique used is

Adesire Bamidele the lighting technique used on the mannequin if you look closely, the location of the mannequin is brighter than the other parts of the store.

The lighting technique draws customers to the mannequin displayed at the store and also John Lewis has made the lighting so appealing and attractive that customers who enter the store will not miss the place where the mannequins are located. Lastly the technique John Lewis use is he pyramid technique. This technique is not only used in the clothing section but also in the food section, the way bottle of drinks are displayed in John Lewis are in a pyramidal pattern. In John Lewis products that are displayed in pyramids are meant to let customers focus in on products. The products which are at the top of the pyramids are the one that attract customers more and then the other items can step down from the top.

Boots (Speciality Store) Boots is a retail store that specialize on health and beauty products and they don’t sell another thing out of this department.

In the Boots store, items are mostly displayed vertically. This is when items in the store is displayed from top to bottom.

The reason why this is so is because Boots consider the height of some of their customer, so they are making it easier to shop for all types of customers. Also when walking in to a Boots store the lighting is always bring and clear, this is to know exactly what you are buying is the right item. And also to enhance the look of the store to attract customers and draw them into the store.

Technology is also implemented in Boots store, where there is an in-built device at the corner where you can find details about certain products in the store and also television that advertises their own products as well. Here as well there are end caps and the end of most aisles in the store. The end caps at Boots store are mostly tooth brushes, soaps and glasses that are not medicated. This also make it easy for customers to locate such products in the store.

Reputation and stacking techniques are also implemented at the store, they repeat products that are being displayed in order to give the customers details of what they are observing in no time. The stacking technique in boots stores lets customers to be aware of the variety of product they have because this technique allows the store to get more of their products out. So stacking gives boots customers variety of products to choose from.

Adesire Bamidele P2 – Describe how visual merchandising techniques are applied to a range of goods in three different retail outlets.

In visual merchandising there are different kinds of goods, and they are; Impulse goods, convenience goods, search and compare lines, speciality goods, complementary merchandise placement and seasonal goods.

Impulse Goods These are goods that are not thought of or unplanned but they are located next to the checkout section in the store such goods are sweets, snacks, novels and so on.

Convenience Goods These are goods that are that are found almost everywhere and are not so expensive and these goods are bought regularly without stress, for instance petrol, newspapers etc.

Search and Compare Goods These are goods that not regularly purchased by customer, in order words they would have to compare certain things about the particular product such as the price, the features, durability and so on.

Specialty Goods These are unique goods that customers make effort to get such goods are; luxurious clothes, exotic fragrances and limited products.

Complementary Merchandise Placement This is when businesses take together products that are relatively the same or they go with each other and are all grouped in one location in order to attract the customers. Clothing’s and footwear’s are the likely products.

Seasonal Goods These are types of good that are normally purchased at a particular time in a year. For instance Christmas and Easter, businesses can decide only to sell product just for that period of time.

John Lewis Seasonal goods – John Lewis uses seasonal goods as a strategy in order to get the awareness of customers they do not only use this as a strategy to draw customers but to also make profits for them. For instance John Lewis can implement this type of strategy in the period of Easter. They would decide to change the whole theme of the store to things that are related to Easter such as; Easter bunnies and Easter eggs, they will make everything colourful and full of excitement for customers to be attracted to it. They could even start selling products that can endorse the Easter season, products like chocolate Easter bunnies or a chocolate Easter eggs, just to let customers know that the season of Easter is here. They will then display these products close to the tills and they would also make the colours of these products standout from others, it is called the micromerchandising technique.

Adesire Bamidele

Complementary Merchandise Placement – John Lewis can implement this strategy by arranging products for example clothing that are relatively similar to each other in the same location in the store. If these clothes are all arranged properly together it makes the retail store looks neat and organised and it also attracts customers the way they are group together. This strategy will also make it possible for customers to find the clothes they want quicker. Such items that can be arranged in groups in the same location is for example; shirts and t-shirts, this is because they are normally worn together.

Impulse goods – These are products that are displayed close to the tills at John Lewis just close to the checkout desk. The type of products the put there could be lip gloss, sweets or gift cards. This technique is used when they want to make a relationship with their customer, because they get it for cheap they might think they are actually gaining. Also these product that are displayed at the till are all grouped together in other to appeal to different customers that enter the store or on their way to check-out. The technique used in this is the cross merchandising.

99p Store Search and Display goods – the 99p store will use this strategy because consumers might want to get a certain product for example meat, because they know the quality of a discount store is different from that of a super market. So they may just decide not to buy the product at the 99p store and end

up buying the same product in a different store Impulse goods - This technique makes customers want to purchase the items that are displayed at the tills close to the checkout desks, this is because the way which the products have been presented id=s appealing to the eyes of different customers and also the displayed products would be reachable for children as well. So that they can all be purchased if children are interested in the impulse goods.

Adesire Bamidele Seasonal goods – the 99p store would put seasonal products such as Easter chocolates or Santa hats close to the store entrance, in order to get noticed immediately by customers and also children, which they like and would also ask their parents to get the items for them.

Boots Store Seasonal goods – Boots may decide to use the seasonal periods as a strategy to attract customers and make profit at the same time. For instance Christmas period, they can decide to change the theme of the store to Christmas related colours which are red and white and green. They will decorate the whole store and make it beautiful for customers to get attracted to and possibly enter the store and buy items. Such seasonal goods they may decide to display could be Christmas key ring

and key holders or a Santa hats.

Convenience goods – this is when they display discounted items at the end of an aisle. These items are items which can be found anywhere such as soap, tooth brush and so on. This is called the micro technique where they have arranged products at a specific place and arranged them in a way that it will draw customer’s attention at a way that would make it stand out from other products.

By – ADESIRE D. BAMIDELE