In today&#;s digital age, attracting customers to step through your doors is harder than ever. Year-over-year foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores has declined 48 straight months, according to data analytics firm RetailNext.
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All signs point towards eCommerce sales remaining strong, so it&#;s important to put even more effort in drawing shoppers inside your storefront. What better way to do that than to create an eye-catching window display?
Here are five questions to ask in order to make your behind-the-glass presentation pop.
Many retailers decorate their windows to correspond directly to the season or a holiday. In other words, they&#;ll only feature red clothing for Valentine&#;s Day and put up a lit evergreen for Christmas. But smart business owners avoid a simplistic design like this.
To stand out from your retail neighbors, choose a theme. Think: &#;The dog days of summer,&#; &#;A Hawaiian Luau,&#; or &#;Beat the heat&#; during summer months. During autumn and winter, consider &#;Falling for you,&#; &#;Inside the snow globe,&#; or &#;Auld Lang Syne.&#; Combine products from your store with inexpensive objects you might have lying around to create an engaging visual scene.
There are adult shoppers and kid shoppers, tall ones and short ones. Ideally, your windows will have something for everyone, so decorate from floor to ceiling. Create a focal point by placing the majority of items at eye level of the average adult. (Keep in mind that eye level when someone is standing outside might not be the same as eye level inside; some windows are raised.) If you sell children&#;s items, place them near ground level. If you don&#;t, decorate with items that kids will find intriguing. Finally, don&#;t forget to hang something from the top of your window display.
Creating a window scene is a lot of work, but customers do not want to see the same decorations over and over and over again. Switching things up keeps your storefront exciting, especially for repeat clients. If you own a business that customers frequent often, like a café or coffee shop, make a small tweak to your visual display&#;add an item, take something away, move a product to a different spot in the tableau&#;every couple of days so it doesn&#;t get stale. For businesses that have a clientele that only visits every few weeks, be sure to freshen your windows on a similar schedule.
You want your window display to be ready for its Snapchat or Instagram close-up. After all, social media is free advertising when people post photos of your scene on their feed. Experts suggest installing lighting that matches the rest of your business&#;using similar color lighting connects the display and the interior to create a cohesive look. (Lighting that contrasts will be jarring and will induce a feeling of disconnectedness.) The use of tabletop lamps and Christmas lights can help create a cozy feeling as well.
You want your window to look polished, not haphazard or cluttered. Stores shouldn&#;t feature their entire inventory in a display. Customers won&#;t know what to focus on if there&#;s too many items crammed into the small space. Instead, showcase just a few items at eye level, along with some smart signage&#;giving shoppers just enough of a glimpse that they want to walk through the door.
Have questions about the Clover product line? Contact a Clover rep today.
[image:[image: WindowDresser34.HM.Downtown.WDC.15April by Elvert Barnes on flickr]
Want to hit your next sales target at retail? Then a custom Floor Display is a great option. Whether you&#;re raising brand awareness, drawing customers in to your product, or have them on display &#; this guide will walk you through each element of the process.
Even though customers are making less trips to retail stores each year &#; those trips have gone up 3x in value. That means you have to catch their attention to make your sales count.
A Floor Display is a great place to showcase your product, but now invest in a large footprint at retail. But it&#;s crucial that you start your design from the beginning with a plan to stand out!
Now, let&#;s get into the nitty gritty of the process.
Designing can be a fun process. Whether you&#;re tackling it, or working with our Creative Services team, you need to consider key things about your retail display, and your customer.
Choosing a printing option is more than simply looking at cost factors.
The technology has been changing over the years, and while some older methods are still proven and effective, newer methods have introduced completely new ways to attack the marketplace.
Here are three printing options to consider:
When it comes to commercial printing needs, lithographic printing is the most used solution. And it&#;s great if you are creating a single design to print over and over without much customization.
One of the main issues is the upfront costs for the printing plate, and the lead time for the project. If you choose Litho, that means you&#;re committing to waiting and a portion of your budget before you even get your first box.
If you are looking for a high volume production run of a single design, this is the way to go.
Bennett&#;s digital presses are game changing for the custom retail display industry. While other companies might tell you that Digital isn&#;t competitive when running large orders, what they aren&#;t telling you is with Digital you can run a variety of designs and be extremely cost effective.
No need to pay for, or wait for, new printing plates to be made!
Digital has been growing in the industry, but only a few brands have actually started to take advantage of this huge opportunity.
Imagine creating regional messaging, designs for different stores, seasonal or product variation sizes &#; all without additional costs.
We were the first to invest in a high-speed, single-pass, direct-to-corrugate, 6-color digital press of its kind in North America. If you want to learn more, check out our page on Digital.
Flexographic printing will bring your cost of printing down, and tooling costs are typically lower. It has a fast turnaround time that can use both water and oil-based inks. But, compared to Lithography and Digital, Flexography has a noticeably lower printing quality.
It cannot create photo quality images, and smooth colors or gradients will have visible banding.
The colors aren&#;t as vibrant or crisp as the other two options, but this format of printing is inexpensive. It also doesn&#;t require a lot of attention to detail, and can be produced at very high speed.
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Here are some design tips to create an effective Floor Display from the ground up:
From a customer&#;s perspective, many club stores can have dim lighting &#; which means bright, bold, and contrasting colors will stand out.
Messaging needs to be clear and motivated. What should your customer know as they pass by the display? What can they see from across the store? Keep it concise and focused! Only the important benefits should be included here.
These are all about selling in high traffic areas.
You want a clean and organized presentation of your products to catch the customer&#;s attention.
They are ideal for showcasing a new product or even a promotional offer to drive purchases.
So many businesses simply fill a quota of product in their display. They forget a customer has to interact with the display and take the product out. That said, you want the display to be easy to restock for retailers to keep selling your items.
Each color speaks to the customer on a different emotional level, that&#;s something all designers know. Why not use that on the store floor? Here&#;s an actual opportunity to put that knowledge into practice and create something that matches your brand in a powerful way.
Most manufacturers claim they will match your brand colors accurately, but they&#;re not actually equipped to do that. We have some of the best printing capabilities in North America, and promise we can actually match with 100% accuracy.
Consider how many times you will need to replace your display over the year. Each time you do is a chance to attract more customers &#; so why not harness the power of Digital Printing and create a fresh look for your display at a fraction of the cost &#; and without slowing your speed to market.
A great display is key, but don&#;t forget about things like warehousing and fulfillment. You need a plan to get your display made, packed, and sent out to retailers. That&#;s why we offer turnkey solutions including Contract Packaging, Shipping Boxes, and Packaging Supplies. The more downtime you have with a display, the less money you make. More on that later.
When you are creating a new display, or updating an existing design, it&#;s important you are confident that your new partner understands all the current retailer and club store compliance guidelines.
If you design a Floor Display for retailers that won&#;t be approved, you&#;re going to have to start all over.
You need a partner that not only designs and manufactures Floor Displays, but also understands the entire production process to get you to the storefront as fast as possible.
A successful Floor Display program depends on your understanding of the entire budget and economics of the entire process. Setting a budget for your display is an important step before beginning the design process.
Without a budget or even a range, the process will become inefficient and aimless. When creating your budget, consider the price of your product, your profit margin, anticipated sales, and the length of time you expect your display to be in place.
The higher the sales price of your product, the more you should consider investing in your display.
After material costs, the best way to manage per unit display costs is volume. Each display design will require tooling, set-up time, and up front costs.
The longer the manufacturer can run, the more units you can use to spread those costs out.
But thanks to Digital Printing we can create multiple graphic designs for your display without increasing costs for those changes.
Using a single design shape, but unique seasonal designs you can look brand new at retail, and keep your costs relatively the same.
Example:
If you order Units at once: You would need to pay all up front tooling costs, wait for the project to be prepped, and purchase all the materials up front. Then consider the entire supply chain, including storage, of your Displays.
If you order 5 runs of 400 Units over 3 Months: You would need to pay all up front tooling costs, wait for the project to be prepped, but only purchase the initial materials up front. Then you can actually redesign the graphics of the following 4 orders of 400 Displays.
Although both orders are purchasing units, the second order has more design flexibility, and lower up front costs to get started in the market. Because of Digital Printing, the difference between short runs and long runs are no longer much of a factor in cost.
Now that you have your design in place, it&#;s time to transfer it to the structure template, a.k.a, the dieline.
There are a few dieline and artwork preparation and requirements that need to be noted by your designated designer, even if your artwork is done and ready to go.
If you do not have a designer, then your packaging company will take care of this for you.
A dieline is typically created on a computer with a designing tool such as Adobe Illustrator, Artioscad, or Adobe InDesign. Measurements need to be precise, to save time and money.
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