The trick to great visual merchandising, and especially over the festive season, is to immerse your customers in the magic of it. To achieve that, you must find innovative ways to draw in the crowds while providing solutions that meet every need.
With so many competitors vying for their portion of the (sales) pie, the pressure is on to stay ahead of the pack. That being said, it’s also crucial to maintain a balance and refrain from overinvesting in unnecessary marketing campaigns that diminish profits at a time when you should be optimising them.
To help you achieve this, we’re sharing some must-know retail display pointers designed to increase visibility without breaking the bank.
Tip one: understand the purpose of festive displays
Consumers are inundated with millions of impressions during the Christmas push, all intended to catch their eye and drive them towards a purchase. However, with so much to focus on, attention spans shorten fast, giving you a smaller chance of attracting that all-important buy-in.
Before you settle on a strategy, take a look at your objectives. Because, aside from creating a festive mood, your retail displays should aim to:
- Reinforce your brand identity.
- Increase footfall.
- Enhance the customer experience.
- Drive a higher average spend through impulse sales.
- Promote key products and exclusive offers.
- Encourage word-of-mouth advertising and user-generated content (UGC).
Tip two: explore what drives consumer behaviour
If you’re in the food and drink industry, you’ll need to understand buyer psychology, because shopping at this time of the year goes beyond budgets, logic or basic needs. Instead, it’s guided by emotions that revolve around nostalgia, generosity and celebration, with consumers already primed to spend money on loved ones and themselves.
To foster this, work on providing an atmosphere that is warm, traditional and benevolent, encouraging relaxed browsing and purposeful spending. It's all about setting the scene and resonating with their overarching feelings.
Tip three: capitalise on emotional triggers that work in your favour
Food is a motivating force, and there’s a strong correlation between personal connection and indulgence.
Whether gift seekers are buying for colleagues or friends, hampers denote thoughtfulness without needing to know the recipient and their preferences intimately, making them an easy win. According to the latest trends, and with activators such as making an impression and generosity in play, interest in premium products is on the rise. Retailers who add value to their merchandise by including artisanal goods, limited editions and items that tell a story are more likely to make the sale.
Tip five make your displays memorable
Your layouts are the key to shaping shopper expectations on quality and price before any product has even been picked up. Here are some pointers:
Put your bestselling items in all your hot zones (at aisle ends, point of sale, etc.), because that’s where you’ll make the most sales.
Use height, balance, good signage, and colour to create a more seamless journey and check that your countertops provide a clear view of all available products without clutter and overstuffing. By rule of thumb, they should be able to capture attention, convey a message, and motivate shoppers to act within just three seconds.
Tip six: make health and safety a priority
Keep your food products fresh and your risers, serving platters, and cake stands clean. Use cloches to protect package-free items from germs and provide tongs and containers for self-service items, leaving no room for cross-contamination.
Tip seven: leverage exclusivity
Seasonal offers and limited editions are an effective way to encourage impulse buys, creating a sense of anticipation and urgency that will prompt sales and generate UGC.
Branding plays a pivotal part in this, so whether you settle for personalised totes or specially designed gift packaging, make sure it is part of your strategy.
Tip eight: have your customers’ best interests at heart
Yes, this is the best time of the year to optimise sales, but it’s also your duty to understand your shoppers’ needs. Doing the right thing can be applied to several different areas:
- Give them solutions that they can afford instead of upselling the most expensive of everything.
- Pre-pack hampers to suit a range of budgets, saving them time on having to curate something themselves.
- Display important items that are often forgotten, such as cranberry sauce and sugared almonds, to help eliminate those rushed, last-minute outings. These little extras show care and increase brand loyalty.
- Supply stocking fillers that offer longevity. We suggest packing them in festive sleeves that can be removed to suit any occasion throughout the year.
- Think about sustainability. From your countertop risers and in-store tote bags to how you package your products, stay committed to reducing your carbon footprint
Tip nine: make every experience immersive
Multi-sensory merchandising is a powerful thing, so let those just-baked smells waft through your food halls, play music that gets everyone in the mood, put out samples that will tempt even the low-cal converts and create a visual extravaganza worth posting about.
Tip ten: keep on top of the stats
From recording footfall to identifying top sellers and dead zones, testing, measuring, and refining your seasonal visual merchandising plan is an ever-changing landscape that shouldn’t end until your doors close on your last trading day. After all, practice makes perfect.
Elevate your retail space this festive season with visual merchandising solutions that create a stir
From BRIX, an ingenious modular furniture system that can be configured and reconfigured without any tools, to a quality range of countertop display and gifting solutions, we have what you need to make this Christmas a spectacular success.
Call our sales team now, and let’s make your shop the talk of the town.
