Time for a Retail Makeover?

• By Lunzeta Brackens
• Feb 12, 2008

When customers walk into your store, are they getting a full retail shopping experience? If you don’t know the answer to that question, ask yourself some more. Are all of your items displayed and merchandised properly, or do you leave customers who enter your store with much to be desired?
If you’re guilty of any of the above offenses, don’t be dismayed — help is on the way. Experts in the retail industry share a few tricks of the trade that can help to set your store apart from the rest and aid you in picking up some additional cash sales.

Getting Started
First thing’s first. If you’re in the business of selling, be sure others know it.
“If it doesn’t look like a retail space, if it doesn’t act like a retail space, then it’s not a retail space,” said Doug Hope, founder of GlobalShop, a leading Nielsen Business Media retail design and in-store marketing event. Based in Alpharetta, Ga., Nielsen Business Media is a full service event management company that professionally operates, arranges, organizes and sponsors trade shows, expositions, conferences, conventions and meetings for associations, corporations and government entities.
“The thing is that the best merchandising tool ever invented is not the nail,” Hope said. “That means if something needs to hang on the wall, don’t use a nail.”

There are different merchandising tools that have been created to be modular and flexible that can merchandise a variety of products. Take inventory of your store items and see which tool will work best for you. If the item is packaged in a box, it probably needs to go on a shelf or gondola, if it’s packaged with a tab to hang then it probably needs to be merchandised along the walls, and if it’s extremely heavy, it more than likely needs to be out in the open floor space.

Pay close attention to these areas in your store: fixtures, flooring, wall systems, lighting and graphics. You may even want to consider hiring a store planner from $35 to $50 per square foot for a basic plan. Here are a few things that a store planner will be able to help you with: basic branding, signage, and an area that looks like a retail space where you can see the good vista of the interior and navigate through the store fairly simply. Some store planners can provide a basic recommendation to a retailer based on the photography of the store.

Create an Image
Each store owner needs to know the kind of image he wants to achieve, said Bill Schober, editor of P-O-P Times, a Chicago-based magazine for in-store marketers, point-of-purchase advertising news and views.
The simplest thing would be using warm lamps as opposed to scary fluorescent lights so a sick person and caregiver feel at home,” he said. “The more comfortable a person feels the more time they’ll spend [in your store].”
“It’s not about creating the most beautiful space in the world, but following the basic rules about branding,” Hope said.

The main thing is to get these elements of store fixtures, flooring, lighting and wall systems pulled together to create the basic layout and plan for the store. No matter how you go after it, you’re going to have to do it in partnership with someone else. Dig out the merchandise that you want to sell and get it out onto the floor to create a selling space.

Leverage Your Floorspace
The next step is determining what should be merchandised together.
“The products and the alignments and the adjacencies all have to make sense so you have to think about what are the departments, what are the groupings and how should things be aligned with one another, what things do people buy with one another so you can determine what should be merchandised next to it,” Hope said.

Once grouping the merchandise, determine whether or not there is opportunity for impulse items, Schober said. Keep this in mind: Who do I think I could sell something extra to?

Some examples of impulse items are sanitary gloves, breath mints, masks or travel packs of hand-wash. Schober believes you should think about add-on sales, which are elective items, such as comfort socks, slippers or any kind of comfort elective product. But keep in mind that price stimulates sales, so don’t hit customers with outrageously high priced items, Schober warned. Cross-selling is another consideration, if someone’s buying a brace, then they’ll probably need some sort of sock, Schober said. Look for opportunities to sell smaller items that can benefit someone with a larger problem.

Each store should include one or two displays that educate consumers on how their products work. Informative packaging that allows consumers to read about the products functions and features works as a silent salesman because it educates consumers while giving them space enough to make a decision about the product.

Offer DVD Demos
Now that you have the right idea about lighting, shelving, merchandising and how to pick up an additional sale or two, seal the deal by offering to show the client that your product does exactly what you say it does. Hope said if it’s not feasible to actually show the consumer in the store space itself, then store owners can install a 20-inch monitor near the counter to have consumers look at a demo of the product online or use a television and DVD to get your point across.

Finally give larger retailers a run for their money by simply staying in the competition.
“One of the basic rules for someone selling home health products is to understand the person who goes into the store has been exposed to the absolute best retail merchandising in the United States for the last 25 years, ”Hope said, “and that’s what you’re up against.”

Retail Research Resources
Here are some online springboards to help launch your retail rebirth:

• To find a store planner in your area go to, http://www.ispo.org/

• To learn about modern store fixtures and displays go to, http://www.modernstorefixture.com/index.php

• To learn more about Global Shop, go to www.globalshop.org

• For more information on P-O-P Times, go to www.poptimes.com

This article originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of HME Business.