Festive season merchandising 101

Work those hotspots

Now more than ever, the hotspots around your space will need to pull their weight. Reserve these spaces for those products that generate a good return and demonstrate good things about how well you curate your product range.

Get everyone involved

Ensure your team is involved in the creation of some eye-catching displays by deciding on groups of products to display together. Helping customers to effortlessly see beyond the one product they have come in for and build something that piques interest and inspires an associated purchase, will ensure you increase your basket size and spend. Enabling the personalisation of hampers and other foodie gifts assemblies should be high on your list of priorities at this point. Far better to take your customer on a journey of discovery in putting together their own perfect selection for their friends and family, rather than have to try and offer (and then assemble!) 20 different hampers online.

Light up

Integrate seasonal props and don’t forget the lighting to call attention to your efforts. Now’s the time to include fairy lights and other sparkly décor items will catch the eye and distract regular customers from their customary path through your spaces.

Go with the flow

Make sure you consider which direction(s) customers will approach your displays or counters from and ensure that your displays are facing that flow. Creating ‘speedbumps’ within the customer flow will help to raise the visibility of your stock. Don’t allow grand vistas straight through your space. Instead create a point of interest beside every counter space or shelving where you display products that attract attention to the main counters they are associated with.

This will halt people in their tracks and increase dwell time while they take in more of what you have on offer. Queues are not all bad news – they can be the perfect place to showcase new or relevant products while customers are not doing anything else. Consider how the big chain stores do this within their zig-zag queue system, particularly by the tills – your last chance to increase the average spend!

Look up

Use all the height of your spaces and raise customers’ eyes to all that you have on offer. Hanging oversized Christmas baubles or cut-outs from your rafters or light fittings above your displays will help to attract attention to them, and create a more immersive atmosphere.

Exclusivity sells

Specially arranged events such as cheese and wine pairings, hamper making, and early-bird Christmas shopping evenings can be great to give customers something that they really can’t get online. Create that special ‘membership’ feeling for your regular customers by starting now to collect their details, if you don’t already, and building a pertinent mailing list of people who want to hear from you. Flag up your interest in gathering their email addresses at various points in the store. Highlight exclusive events or deals that only those who sign up will be able to access.

Numbers for events you hold will inevitably be limited to ensure sufficient spacing, so this can be a great selling point – first come, first served can really help to push customers to make that positive decision.