Advanced Fashion: Standard 9 Visual Merchandising

1. Advanced Fashion: Standard 9Visual Merchandising Created by: Kris Caldwell, Timpanogos High School

2. Visual Merchandising • Visual Merchandising: The physical display of goods in the most attractive and appealing ways. • Store Layout: the interior arrangement of retail facilities. • Selling areas: where merchandise is displayed and customers interact with sales personnel. (75-80% of the total space) • Sales support areas: devoted to customer services, merchandise receiving and distribution, management offices and staff activities.

3. Visual Merchandising • Floor Plan: A drawing showing arrangement of physical space, such as showing the positioning of merchandise groups and customer services for a retail store. • Grid Layout: A retail floor plan that has one of ore primary (main) aisles running through the store, with secondary (smaller) aisles intersecting with them at right angles. • Maze Layout: A free-flowing retail floor plan arrangement with informal balance. • Fixtures: Shelves, tables, rods, counters, stands, easels, forms, and platforms on which merchandise is stocked and displayed for sale.

4. Merchandise Presentation • Merchandise presentation includes the ways that goods are hung, placed on shelves, or otherwise made available for sale in retail stores. • Shoulder-out presentation: The way most garments are hung in home closets with only one side showing from shoulder to bottom. • Face-forward presentation (face-out presentation): Hanging of clothing with the front fully facing the viewer. This should always be done at entrances and aisles.

5. Retail Fixtures • Carousels: Circular racks that turn.

6. Retail Fixtures • Dump tables/bins: A rimmed table or bin used to hold sale or special merchandise on the sales floor, especially in discount operations; it has no formal arrangement.

7. Retail Fixtures • Four-way rack: A fixture with four extended arms, that permits accessibility to hanging merchandise all the way around

8. Retail Fixtures • Rounders: Circular racks on which garments are hung around the entire circumference

9. Retail Fixtures • T-stand: Freestanding, two-way stand in the shape of a T, that holds clothes on hangers, sometimes with one straight arm and one waterfall.

10. Retail Fixtures • Waterfall: A fixtures with an arm that slants downward, that contains knobs to hole face-forward hangers with clothing at various levels.

11. Displays • Displays: individual and notable physical presentation of merchandise. • Displays are intended to: • Stimulate product interest • Provide information • Suggest merchandise coordination • Generate traffic flow • Remind customers of planned purchases • Create additional sales of impulse items • Enhance the store’s visual image

12. Interior Displays • Locations for interior displays: • Just in the entrance • Entrance to department • Near cash/wrap • Next to related items • Across from elevators and escalators • Ends of aisles

13. Components of Displays • Merchandise • Lighting • Props • Signage

14. Merchandise • More interesting if in odd numbers • Groups: • One-category, or line-of-goods • Related groupings: go together or reinforce each other • Theme groupings: event, holiday, etc. • Variety or assortment groupings: collection of unrelated items all sold at the same store.

15. Lighting • Used to direct customer’s attention to the display • Use more light for dark colors, less light for light colors • Beamspread; the diameter of the circle of light • Beamspread techniques: • Floodlighting: recessed ceiling lights to direct light over an entire wide display area • Spotlighting: focuses attention on specific areas or targeted items of merchandise • Pinpointing: focuses a narrow beam of light on a specific item

17. Props • Objects added that support the theme of the display. • Functional Props: used to physically support the merchandise. (mannequins, stands, panels, screens, etc) • Decorative Props: used to establish a mood or an attractive setting for the merchandise being featured (ex: mirrors, flowers, seashells, surfboards, etc) • Structural Props: used to support functional and decorative props and change the physical makeup of displays. (boxes, rods, stands, stairways, etc)

19. Signage • Includes individual letters and complete signs. Often on some kind of holder. • Can tell a story about the goods. • Should try to answer customers questions. • Should be informative and concise. • Can include prices, sizes, department location.

20. Window Displays • Seen from outside of the store. • First contact with the customer. • Can have a series of windows. • Advantages of Window Displays: • Establish and maintain an image • Arouse curiosity • Disadvantages of Window Displays: • Expensive to design and maintain • Requires space • Merchandise can get ruined (sun ,etc) • Glare

21. Types of Window Displays • Enclosed windows: have a full background and sides that completely separate the interior of the store from the display window. • Ramped windows: floor is higher in back than in front • Elevated windows: from 1 to 3 feet higher than sidewalk • Shadowbox windows: small, boxlike display windows

23. Types of Window Displays • Semi-closed windows: have a partial background that shuts out some of the store interior from those viewing the window • Open Windows: have no background panel and the entire store is visible to people walking by • Island windows: four-sided display windows that stand alone, often in lobbies.