Special Gifts Section

Great Ideas for Gifts (From page 114)

We have several vendors but one that stands out is a local Alaskan artist named Ray Troll. They’re creative and have a great look to them. Again, local art seems to outsell the standard generic gift items that can be found in every store in Alaska.” Mede said by expanding and remodeling the store’s toy section, it has expanded their customer base: “Toys bring kids who in turn, bring their parents. We want their parents to shop the entire store. They are either coming in for a specific product and can let their kids play in the toy area or they are coming in for a toy and can explore other products at the same time. Either way, those are the customer interactions we are targeting. Gifts are the same theory, just with tourists. Come for the gifts/ souvenirs and stay for all of the other items you may

How Do You Sell More Toys?

Toys are gifts in themselves. Pharmacy and hardware store owners that carry toys in addition to gifts promote their toy departments in various ways.

“We carry the Melissa and Doug toy line. They sell themselves because it’s such a great line. We keep it fresh by continually adding their new stuff every season—that helps things to sell because everyone is looking for the new stuff. Same thing with Jellycat adding the new keeps it fresh, keeps it selling. We have people who collect Jellycat and come in for the new stuff,” said Angie Alonge, buyer and gift manager at Pemberton Pharmacy & Gift in Salisbury, Md. “I go back to the artful displays—have things that are appealing with the ways they are displayed.”

Patrick Mede, co-owner of Ulmer’s Drug and Hardware in Homer, AK, said they recently remodeled the toy section so the entire area is a safe, welcoming space for their youngest cus- need on your Alaskan vacation.”

Because customers are not necessarily in a pharmacy or hardware store to buy a gift, proprietors use creative merchandising techniques to display their items. “Every little display we have tells a story,” Alonge said. “When we’re merchandising, we do vignettes of items and colors. Right now we’re decked out for the holidays. We kind of incorporate what’s trending into our displays and will group ‘like’ items rather than a single icon. For instance, we have a huge coastal section, and we might arrange a display showing Swig tumblers and beach towels, and this will say to the customer, ‘Here is everything you need for a day at the beach.’”

Mede said, “We create several specific aisles near the cash registers to highlight the gifts during the summer season. You need a couple of high-priced, eye- tomers. “As a community hardware/pharmacy, we are blessed to be a regular stop for our customers. For the past five-six years we have committed more and more space to our toy department. Recently, we moved our toy section to a carpeted corner of the store to allow for more displays. We want kids to be able to touch and play with toys in a non-high traffic area of the store. This allows the parents to be more relaxed and spend more time browsing both the store and the toy department.”

Jill Werner, co-owner of Werner Hardware & Gifts in Humphrey, Neb., said one of the benefits of serving a small community is she and her husband know most of their customers by name, and most of their customers come to Werner’s for as much of their shopping as they can. “We sell a few toys—some dolls, we have some baby clothes, a few teethers. We’re in a farming com- munity, and don’t have to do much to promote. We keep things close to the front window so people see them.”

Square Pharmacy and Gifts in Belmont, Miss., carries a selection of Melissa and Doug toys. Pharmacies and hardware stores continue to evolve from single niche retailers to more full-service operations, carrying a range of goods to fulfill customers’ various needs. ❖ catching items to draw people in to find more affordable gifts that they’re likely to purchase. Postcards and magnets go on dedicated spinners for convenient shopping. And we create a gridwall of T-shirts to show the design and then fold the sizes below the items. Pretty standard gift store merchandising but the fact that we draw it up to the front of the store during the busy season allows for more impulse purchases.” Credille utilizes easels as display pieces and says grouping like items has been effective. Werner tries to change displays frequently to keep the inventory visually interesting. “I feel I have a creative mind and am constantly changing things up. We try to get big pieces of furniture and arrange around that. We also have pegboard walls so I can just put a nail in a wall and arrange items. [A good display] is when you pair things together that a customer would never think of— different textures, different colors—galvanized with gold, for instance,” she explained.

Trends drive just about everything in retail. Werner

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