Nikki p1

P1/P2 -Describe the visual merchandising and display techniques used by three different types of retail outlets Definitions; 

Visual Merchandising – is generating sales by the way in which the shop chooses to display their products in the most visually aesthetic way to make it desirable to customers. The general benefits of this would be because visual merchandising can advertise a product in a way that the customer can see the product in action. What I mean by this is for example if a shop is advertising clothing, then it could put an entire outfit on a manikin to get customers to want to “buy the look” which can gain even more sales by showing the product in action.

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End caps – What an end cap product is when a product is put at the end of the isle. That is a prestigious placement for a product and those spots are usually reserved for the high end brands, or the high end products and it is done so that they have the upper hand against their rivals. For examples frosties cereal will be at the end of the isle whilst Tesco own brand will be at the beginning.

Theme display- This is when an organization is promoting a product and they create a theme around the isle for example to create an ambience around the product.

Vertical merchandising is placing the products from the top to the bottom so that the customer will focus his eyes at the top, and put at the top will be the product that is the focal point, and then continue to look down.

Horizontal Merchandising – This is when an organization places their product to across from the left all the way to the right, so that you can follow the products along.

Pyramiding – This is when products are placed in a triangle in order for the customers to look at the focal point of the pyramid which is the top, and then look at its surroundings.

Stacking – This is when products are stacked on top of one another like DVD’s for example in order for customers to be able to see the selection easier.

Symmetry and balance – This lets the aisle look organized and visually aesthetic because aisles and sets are evenly put around each other.

Consistency and repetition – This is when a merchandising scheme has been set by an organization and is repeated to give the store an organized look.

Propping – This is when a store uses props in order to continue a theme that it has for a theme it has like when a clothing shop sells Hawaiian t shirts, it could have a big surf board as a prop to continue the theme.

Power of three – This is when a product is put on display in sets of threes, this would mean that the product would have three focal points. This would allow customers to focus on the product quicker.

Power of graphics –This is when companies would use 3D designs or visuals in order to draw a customer to the store.

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To start off with To begin with I’m going to explain how big retailers like Tesco use smart visual method in order to get more purchases. Within Tesco they have a lot of different items being sold in their stores, so 1

within the store it is organized in such a way that products that are interlinked are very close by to each other. This is something that majority of people wouldn’t think in to and would think that Tesco do this only for the customers convenience. However Tesco has organized there shops in this way to maximize the amounts of purchases that customers make because they don’t only want customers to pick up what they want; they actually also want customers to pick up what they don’t even know they wanted.

This photo is a perfect example of Tesco’s visual merchandising being very effective. This would intrigue customers who have come to this isle initially for one item to continue shopping. As seen in the photograph Tesco does horizontal displays for stationary, as you go along the aisle you see different stationary products to allow customers to see the entire selection with no difficulty.

Tesco has used big bright colours in order to capture the eye of children because they are more drawn to colourful things, they will then look at all of the toys that are on display and their parents will be more likely to purchase the items if their child tells them that they want it rather than a parent going to buy it out of their own free will. Therefore the colorfulsigns and colour symmetrical display will be very effective for Tesco to gain purchases by using this intelligent merchandising technique.

Tesco has also done something quite clever, the banners which would display the price of the item are written on the colour white, which is a very bland and plain colour in contrast to the very bright and colourful toys and signs around it, I think that they have done this because they don’t want the price to be the thing that stands out they want it to be the products.

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In addition to this, Tesco have used a method known as “symmetry” to allow the products to look balanced. It makes the store look very organizes and visually aesthetic to the customers. To further this they have also used another effective technique known as “graphics” with the huge sign in 3D because it draws your eyes to what is being shown making it almost impossible for a customer to miss.

I am going to compare this to a contrasting retailer. Another retailer that does very effective visual merchandising is Versace. I am going to begin this with Versace’s window display. I think that verscae does very fitting and effective displays because it suits the brand very well. When you think of Versace people generally think of a very prestigious and high end brand, so the visual display for this brand has to do a lot more than advertise the clothes, but it has to be a representation of the brand.

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The gold manikin is a good idea to attract customers because gold is a colour that relates to something being premium or rare, and that would draw the customer’s eye of Versace being a premium brand. The abstract background would give customers the idea that the brand is artistic and creative and of high value. The gold chains on the bag matching the colour of the manikin give the whole display a nice colour symmetrical look making it very visually aesthetic to the public.

As mentioned before the other items of display might have a second use or purpose which is to get the customers to buy the look which could encourage customers to want to buy more products, and also would get customers who are unsure what product would look nice with another product.

This is a photograph of the inside of the Versace store. Versace has made the products the focal point of this section of the store. The store has a very elegant and sophisticated ambience which makes the stores products look even more desirable. It continues its effective visual merchandising inside the store with the gold manikins to encourage customers to buy the look because it takes away the hassle of customers having to find what looks good together by themselves.

The bright lights around the store brighten it making the surrounding look even more aesthetic and it gives the whole shop a nice atmosphere to encourage customers to shop.

The placing of the dummies around the store gives the whole shop a very fashionable look making customers feel like they are in a very high status environment, the dummies are dressed very sophisticated and they are all around the store so wherever you look you are surrounded by the shops high status atmosphere.

Lastly I am going to compare this to another contrasting retailer. I am going to analyse the visual merchandising of the 99 p store.

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To begin with their version of visual merchandising differs significantly from the other two; this is because they don’t have the aesthetic window display like the previous two retailers. However this does not mean that their visual merchandising is worse, the reason that theirs is not the same is because the 99p store isn’t known for its quality, everyone is aware of this so it gathers customers by its window display through offers and deals. People who shop at the 99p store does not expect high quality products due to the cheap price so for the store to have a pretentious window display would be unnecessary.

The 99ps stores micro merchandising is also very effective because even though the products are cheap, the store does not sacrifice its order and neat product display just because of the fact that the products are cheap. The products have a horizontal lay out, meaning that the way this store tries to get customers to maximize their amounts of purchases is to put items related to the previous items horizontal and close by. This is a very effective method because not only does it make customers get what they came for, it makes customers buy products they didn’t even know they wanted.

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Tesco has various method which they can use in order to draw in products. Another example of this would be Impulse buying. Tesco has organized the till in a way that next to the tills there are convenience items which you can easily grab or add to you groceries, it is usually aimed at children through the process of “pester power� children will ask their parents for the sweets and because they are already at the till they are more likely to purchase these products.

To further this convenience goods will be available almost everywhere in the 99p store. This is due to the fact that the store sells their stock quite cheap therefore they will need to be selling products that customers would get and want so that this discount retailer has advantage over supermarkets because they would have both convenience and the cheaper price.

To conclude these different forms of retailers would have different approaches to what they would use as visual merchandising. However the most important thing about visual merchandising is it has to be related to each business to make it the most effective. There is no set of visual merchandising that will apply for every business, so finding the best way to express what the business is about would be the best way to merchandise the business.

Bibliography Google images Level 3 business book

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