Visual merchandising and movement

We all understand that visual merchandising is key to success in bricks and mortar shops but why?

As the adage states: The first impression is the lasting impression. The foundation of visual merchandising is enticing potential customers into your store and improving the customer experience while shopping; by improving the experience they are more likely to return.

From your front window to the farthest corners of your store, your layout matters. It helps guide the customer into your store and makes them want to continue their visit. There is a distinct correlation with the length of time a customer can spend in your store the likelihood of making a purchase. This can be maximised if your space is appealing and your team is engaged and welcoming.

Even if you do not keep animals in your store reptile and pet stores are well suited to being engaging and inspiring. As a generalisation: most people are naturally curious about animals, in particular reptiles and exotic animals, this lends itself to being able to create mind-blowing destinations within your store that help customers build an emotional connection to your business. By being a part of the reptile industry, we have a unique opportunity to create multi-sensory experiences that engage people subsequently making the visit more awe-inspiring and memorable.

Thinking of your shop space as a stage can help to be more creative when displaying your products and livestock.

Optimising layout

To optimise your layout consider traffic flow and stock movement. What products move quickly, what has a shorter shelf-life and what lasts longer vs. how people move through the area. A good example is live food – as this is a fast-moving item with a short shelf-life, it should be placed at the front of the store allowing quick and easy access.

Expensive items should also be towards the front, this makes other items seem more reasonably priced as customers move through the store.

Layout refresh

We have experienced visiting our local supermarket to buy bread and discovering it’s been moved. Granted this can be a source of confusion and frustration, however there are good reasons to periodically refresh the layout of your store. The initial move can encourage customers to explore more of the store enabling them to browse the products more intensely than they did before.

This also enables you to promote new items, boost impulse purchases, aid in stock rotation and leverage market trends. If you get a highly desirable item in stock, it is logical to make the space available.

Maximising motion

Humans are more drawn to movement; this is primarily why social media has seen a shift toward video-based content as it draws more engagement. As livestock retailers there is a natural opportunity to leverage the natural movement of animals in your store-space to make it more engaging. You can also invest in the environments they are in which help to cultivate a more memorable and inspiring experience for your customers.

Story telling

Have you ever considered adding a completely unrelated stuffed toy to a display to serve as a prop or conversation starter? You can utilise many elements to cultivate an impression or convey a message to your customers. Colours, lighting and images can all help to make a product more appealing by stimulating a thought or emotion that may resonate with a potential buyer. An easy way to employ this strategy is by leveraging notable calendar days and theme window displays – Valentines day, Christmas, Halloween etc.

To support our customers with visual merchandising we are available to create a planogram for our stocked products so why not reach out to our marketing team by clicking here.