Visual Merchandising Guide

If you operate a shop floor, you need to understand how to make products stand out on the shelves. 

With very little printed information or literature on display, it’s hard to make the sale through words, so naturally, we need to turn to a more visual form of merchandising to encourage customers to make that all-important purchase.

If you’re new to the in-store marketing game or you’re looking to enhance your sales through visual merchandising, you’re in the right place. 

The Dee Set team specialises in getting your products off the shelves almost as quickly as you put them on. We create an environment that doesn’t just support sales but actively tracks and enhances performance using data insights and visual merchandising techniques. 

What does that mean for your business?

Simply put, more sales. Every brand that works with us has growth in mind, and our platform helps them get there.

Get in touch with our team right now if you simply can’t wait to get started, or carry on reading below to learn how visual merchandising can transform the way that your products perform in-store.

What is visual merchandising?

Visual merchandising is a marketing practice that’s used in stores to effectively optimise the environment to attract more customer attention. 

In simple terms, it’s the process of setting up a store in a way that reduces the barriers that may prevent a sale, making it easier to convert any potential customer that walks through your doors. 

The first thing that visual merchandising requires is a clear understanding of your customers and the benefits that your products and services have on their lives. 

Understanding these benefits means in-store displays can be better customised for maximum impact. 

As the name suggests, visual merchandising is all about how things appear.  You’ll be looking to entice your customers aesthetically, and this means putting a great deal of time, care, and effort into the way that your products look both on store shelves and in store window displays. 

But this doesn’t always mean that you have to make your product look pretty - in fact, that may be the opposite effect of what you want to achieve for an item such as a drill or a saw. 

It’s all about knowing your audience, understanding the appeal of your product, and being able to create an environment that heightens each shopper’s desire to acquire your product right there and then. 

It’s not just a principle that helps you to sell a single product, either. You can take a visual merchandising approach to your entire store, making your brand the focus of your efforts, rather than a single item.

Taking this approach increases the touchpoints that previously uninterested customers have with your brand and products, increasing the likelihood of them making that all-important purchase decision. 

Types of visual merchandising that you can utilise

So, how can you turn your ordinary store into a social media hotspot that sets the world alight?

It’s all in the design. 

And that’s where our team comes in. 

As a full-service field marketing and merchandising agency, we know a thing or two about how to make a product sell.

Over the years, we’ve developed tried-and-tested strategies for in-store marketing that increase the sales of our client's products. 

We’ve spent the time getting to know what does and doesn’t work, creating a refined set of best practices that we can deploy to increase the impact of the products on your shelves. 

Here are a few of our most effective visual marketing methods:

Customer Experiences

Sometimes it takes more than seeing to get your customers to believe it. 

Active selling and excellent customer experiences often go hand in hand, which is why product testing and sampling can be great ways to engage your target market while attracting footfall. 

First used as a marketing method by a soap company back in the 1800s, product sampling is now one of the most-relied upon methods when it comes to establishing your offering in a saturated market.

This gives your shopper the opportunity to put your product to the test, while tapping into the irresistible ‘power of free’. 

This is a strong behavioural bias that makes anything that comes without a pricetag more attractive and motivating than its competitor, prompting your customer to effectively ‘try before they buy.’ 

There’s nothing like a exciting display with a friendly face that draws the eye, which can only be boosted through the offer of irresistible product samples or testers. 

Once you’ve got their attention, your product can then work its magic, helping to cultivate a customer experience that can increase your brand’s exposure. 

It can also leave your customers feeling confident with their upcoming purchase, helping to create repeat buyers who simply can’t get enough of your product - which is the dream for any in-store marketer! 

Interactive displays 

Humans engage more with things that they’re able to interact with. 

It’s a simple fact of nature and something that you’ll be able to use to your advantage in a retail environment. After all, influencing consumer behaviour is exactly what we’re trying to achieve with visual merchandising. 

Interactive displays with touch screens, sounds, and different textures all help to immerse the shopper into the experience of your store. If you’re able to incorporate these displays in your store, you can expect a boost in audience engagement that translates into more sales. 

Checkout displays and FSDUs

The final barrier before a purchase is made: the checkout. 

Whilst this may seem like a place where you need to tread carefully, it’s an ideal spot to increase your marketing efforts!

The average shopper makes three unplanned purchases in 4 out of every 10 store visits they make - essentially, people love to be convinced to buy things at the point of purchase. 

One of the key marketing tools for these situations is FSDUs, also known as free-standing display units. These units can be conveniently placed beside the checkout and queueing area, providing the opportunity to encourage shoppers to make small impulse buying decisions right at the moment they hit the checkouts. 

FSDUs are highly effective visual merchandising tools in retail stores, particularly supermarkets and clothing stores, where you’ll often find convenient, low-value necessities such as socks, underwear, and refreshments being offered. 

Get in touch with us today 

Implementing visual merchandising strategies in your stores can be a tough job, especially if it’s not your area of expertise. 

That’s why the Dee Set team is on hand to help you devise the perfect plan for increasing sales in stores. 

We’ll work with you to learn what makes you tick - the benefits of your brand, the USPs of your products, and the unique layouts of your stores, giving us all the information we need to create a plan of action that’ll hit the mark. 

If you’d like to learn more about the services that we can offer to your business as a full-service field marketing agency, you can carry on reading right here on our site!

Alternatively, give us a call or fill out our online form to take the first step towards a full-optimised store environment today!