Las Vegas Market Feature

Outdoor Living Spaces’. That’s one of the bonuses of sharing Green Bay Botanical Garden with our guests…they can start to re-imagine how their own yard can be transformed into a thriving space for themselves and nature, too. I recently came upon a quote, ‘Wherever you are, find something beautiful. Beauty cleanses the mind’.”

Retailers utilize different methods to encourage shoppers to add a home décor item to a purchase. “In a tourist-type situation, people aren’t necessarily here to stock their kitchens,” Coughlin said. “If someone is buying one mug, ask if they might want two. Or point out the coordinating pieces, such as a soup mix or bowl. If you have a variety of price points on display, point them out to customers. The more intriguing you make your store, the more guests will take their time to go through it. If you have interesting, unusual things, they’ll really examine what you have. Make it an experience of ‘shopping’ versus ‘buying.’ ” Herrera suggested grouping like items with a theme to encourage multiple purchases. “It really comes down to you really have to curate stories and include multiple different product departments in the merchandise display so you are telling a story around that grouping,” she explained. “We currently have a Citrus Story, which is anything from a lemon candle to a table runner. Having similar items together will get the guest to purchase multiple items from the display –possibly the entire grouping!”

When merchandising, a full selection of items arranged in an eye-catching way will draw visitors’ attention and ideally lead to a sale. Wilcox cautioned against making displays too full, however: “Focus on your theme and be decisive about you’re trying to convey. Don’t have too many items displayed at once – people need to rest their eyes in order to be able to really see things. Incorporate different levels of height and take the lighting into account,” she suggested. “Also, make it easy to shop. If a display is too pretty, customers don’t want to disturb it and won’t buy the individual items. If you want to have an aspirational display, put some of the items nearby so people know where to take from.” One goal of merchandising is to spark shoppers’ creativity: “You’re trying to create a space where your guests can see how to use it and how it might fit into their décor. You’re playing on the imagination. For instance, we still have a Christmas tree up, and for our summer display we had all these birdhouses up. I put all the birdhouses into the tree—I wanted to get their imaginations going. I have a lot of natural elements in the displays—we’re trying to echo the beauty of the garden in the gift shop.” ❖