If your first inclination when merchandise isn’t selling is to mark it down, you may not be doing your bottom line any favors.  Try changing the location of the items in your display first to see if that will help spur some interest.  After all, the term visual merchandising is based on the premiss that the eye appeal of well-displayed goods makes an important contribution to how well they sell.

Customers, especially “regulars,” want to see new merchandise whenever they stop in. But changing the location of an item can often make it seem fresh and exciting, especially if it is displayed in an alternative part of the store, against a new background, or cross-merchandised with different goods than before.

One key element to displaying merchandise well is considering its relationship to eye-level, and to other stores. As this street sign in Chicago indicates, we aren’t so good at looking right and left, and up and down. It could be that a line is languishing because it is on a shelf that is very low (or high, if you are my height). Or perhaps most of your shoppers are moving to the right when they enter your store (as Paco Underhill says they will), and the goods are on the left.

It is a great idea to get all your staff involved in changing displays around, because they will each have a different perspective and probably also fresh ideas. The more ways that you can get a customer to look at your merchandise, the better!

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder