This “best of” Specialty Shop Retailing blog is updated from a popular past post.

In Peter Pan, James M. Barrie asks children to clap their hands if they believe in fairies.  The equivalent in retailing is often buying a whole lot of one item to show how strongly you believe that the merchandise is a winner.   Do you believe enough to do that?

I once saw a display in the Japanese department store Takashimaya on Fifth Avenue in New York back that was made up of four huge vases filled with individually wrapped soaps. This display indicated to me that the store believed that even though the soap in the vases was very expensive, customers would like it well enough to want many bars.  Whether you are selling rubber duckies or expensive watches, occasionally “massing” your display can demonstrate a commitment to what you are offering.  The candle display above, for example, doesn’t ask customers whether they need candles – the question seems to be which size and color would be best?

The Swedish furniture chain IKEA  uses the “massing” concept in almost all its non-furniture displays. They have large bins of each item, creating an excitement that six on a shelf just can’t match.  You are almost magnetically drawn to a huge, freestanding display of inexpensive candleholders.  “I must need a few of these,” you can’t help but think. Mass merchandisers, of course, offer mass quantities of everything, which has the opposite effect.  If you want to highlight something, you need to set it apart from other items.  You also need to create some space around the display, which mass merchandisers never do.  The key is to create a focus.

Takashimaya, which closed its New York location in 2010, made equally good use of the idea of focusing on select merchandise by only featuring one or two of something special. Unlike many American department stores that sometimes cram as much merchandise as possible into their square footage, Takashimaya tried to create what they described as “a shopping environment with the feeling of a personal home, featuring soaring ceilings, residential lighting, and artfully decorated stone floors. Takashimaya is a store temple of uniquely curated merchandise and gifts.”

Although Takashimaya was hardly a small, independent retailer, I like the idea of their merchandise selection being curated. Like an art museum, we need to use care to select our merchandise, and to give some thought to whether it is best displayed in splendid isolation like the Mona Lisa, or in a festive grouping like Dale Chihuly’s blown glass flowers.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder