Most shoppers can agree that a nosy salesperson can ruin a good shopping experience. The good news for retail owners is that there is a way to convince customers to buy your products even without the intervention of a sales staff member.
The way you organise and arrange your products matters when it comes to making sales. According to an article by Shopify, your retail space should do the selling on your behalf.
A number of store characteristics serve as significant factors that affect the purchasing behaviours of customers, said a study published in the European Journal of Economics and Business Studies in 2016.
The study found that many successful and profitable retail businesses wisely and strategically used every square metre of their retail space. Misuse of space, on the contrary, can confuse customers in the orientation of the store and may result in a shorter stay, ultimately leading to lost customers and revenue.
Retail store layout fails when the owner fails to take into consideration what the customer wants to buy and when they want to purchase it. Merchandising has definitely changed now that customers want to interact and even sample the products before buying them, so your retail space needs to be arranged in such a way that allows that kind of customer experience.
To do that, retail owners may borrow some tricks from visual merchandising principles.
Visual merchandising is more than just keeping your store’s aesthetics the best that it can be. It also involves a tried and tested science that delivers results.
One of the subtle yet effective secrets of visual merchandising is product grouping. Consumer psychology tells that the way products are grouped can affect their buying behaviour and attract them to certain products. Arrange your products in a way that they tell a story – it can be based on usage, colour scheme or in any way that ties these products together.
Another visual merchandising strategy that successful stores and markets use is the bell curve principle. On the right side of the bell curve would be your premium and expensive products. Customers may not always flock to them but placing them on the easily visible right curve will instantly impress your customers. In the middle will be your popular or in-demand products that will generate the most profit, and on the left will be your promotional merchandise.
The idea is that the products that generate the least profit are placed in attractive areas of the room instead of completely getting rid of them. This allows people to talk about the premium and promotional products, which, in turn, will be converted into sales.
To optimise the strategic use of retail space, Shelving Shop Group offers a range of retail and supermarket rack systems ideal for many types of merchandise.
We carry one of the most widely used storage and display systems for groceries and retail stores across New Zealand. Our rack systems boast commercial strength, high weight capacity and versatile compatibility among many other benefits.
For all your commercial display and storage needs, call us on 0800 180 280.
