You remember when life was good and all you had to do was hang a sign in the window “open for business”. Retail has been a barometer of the economy and recent results show that keeping even to last year is a challenge.
Jerry Birnbach Associates have spent most of this year on remodels, renovations and display design with a focus of increasing sales.
Today’s economy has made it necessary for all retailers to take a step back and with an honest eye evaluate if they are doing all they can to increase sales. There is no one factor to fix in order to insure a positive increase and the days of expansion are behind us for the time being. Product will always rule in terms of improving sales, but unique product has been driven by branded items. In the retail venues where the brands are all on a level playing field, price becomes the next factor that has to be right in order to succeed. With e-commerce past early development, this has become a worthy opponent for the brick and mortar retailer.
So what is left to correct or improve in order to get a leg up on the competition? Retail Design, Retail Display, Store layout, lighting, and bringing back a personality that meets your shoppers taste are all factors requiring a revamp to make your numbers. Our experience tells us that those retailers who cannot invent their point of difference and clearly express this to the consumer will fall by the wayside. The small retailer is fighting the well financed retailers that understand the need to be different and are willing to spend the money to obtain that difference. Through well thought out design, decor, merchandising assortments and consistent attention to detail, our retail clients are actually meeting their goals for increase sales in 2011.
Ask any retailer the definition of a great look. The answer would be a full product presentation with no part of the display showing! I would say the above with some display showing to border or frame the product.Granted if you sell out of an item and the store staff are too slow to fill the goods back in, then the exposed display does look better then conventional slotwall or pegboard.Just remember that slotwall works well in aligning product in the horizontal direction. However the downside of slotwall is the strict dimensions in the vertical position. If you product package hanging on the peghook is in multiples of 2.75″ on a 3″ on center slotwall spacing life is beautiful If the package is over that dimension, the end result is you have to skip a row when placing the item one over the other. When you calculate the lost area due to the spacing it could result in $100 per sq. ft. loss in sales productivity. Multiply that loss over an entire store of slotwall and it isnt a pretty story.
Remember form follows function and if the product and packaging works to the slotwall strict rules that is a good solution. If not, you are penny wise and pound foolish
So I was saying based on the images in this blog of wire bins. This concept of display is perfect for the category of goods it is showing. In the case of Walmart, Target or CVS the savings to the chain can exceed $100000 a year based on just the 9 bins shown in this photo.A wise retailer once explained the basis for this claim is that the only way retailers can make money theses days is to cut overhead. Almost any product is so well shopped including imports from China that the difference of an item from chain to chain is negligible. Therefore the gross profit is the lowest it can be and the only way to make money is to handle the product more efficiently.If the bin was not used and a shelf was the alternate solution, I estimate the following savings:at $10.00/hr labor rate, and 3 minutes more to load product onto a shelf per section, times 10 reloadings of product per item over a year equals $4.80 per item. 9 Items shown in photo times 2500 stores comes to $108000 in labor saved.Design is a business decision first and an esthetic consideration after. Look at the whole picture before landing on what you consider the best display solution.
Comment on todays Fixtures Close Up Blog:So here is my guess as to the reason behind the adapter design.Waterfall is traditionally a method to allow the item behind the forward item to be viewed partially so the customer knows there is either another design, color or size behind the front item. But in this case the color band indicates the second and third item are the same product sku, and size could not be a reason.The individual hook allow the product in back to be removed without having to remove the front item. A peghook requires the front items removed to get the back product unless a hook is provided on the package instead of a conventional punched hole.Price tag holders, a very nice feature, allow for different price points to be conveyed to the consumer. Why repeat it in this case is proof that the current item was not the original intention for the design.The length of the actual hook is not long so the intent was to hold one to a few of the same item per hook, otherwise the length would have been longer.My guess is that the item is flat, multiple sized, or same item multiple color. Product also has a price variation based on size or color or product spec.One could take the position that this is a good way to fill space, but a retailer would not agree with fudging a visual presentation for the sake of filling in void space.