You think your business has made you boring. You are always occupied with your errands and the little time you are left with is spent on bookkeeping. If that is so, then you haven’t explored the colorful world of window displays. One of the most fun part of pop-up shops is to manage the visual merchandising aspects of your business. This includes a lot of things such as impressive window displays, shelving and signage. If you are creative with your ideas, you can influence your potential customer to make the purchase.
Though the ambiance and different aspects of store layout complement each other to influence a customer to buying your products, it is the window display that speaks volumes about the brand. Imagine a customer standing at the far end of the street as he suddenly sees your outlet board. How can he imagine the quality of your products without visiting your shop? Here the windows displays come in.
The journey your consumer makes from standing outside your shop to entering the outlet is mainly influenced by attention-grabbing window displays.
How To Create Impressive Window Displays?
While creating a window display, the most important thing for you to keep in mind is that it is a visual signage that people will look at from distance. This simply means your window display needs all the right elements that will convince your buyer to walk in and make that purchase. But the question that comes to mind is how to create an impressive window display? Following tips will help you determine how you can create a good window display for your retail business.
Think Of A Story Based On A Theme
Usually retailers consider using a theme for their windows displays. Themes can involve a lot of elements and it is best to think of a story related to that theme. For instance, if you simply stick to Christmas, you could go on endlessly with white and red coloured items. However, if you think a particular story related to that theme, you can discard all other irrelevant items and stick to just the main elements of the story. This would make your window display appear more sophisticated with the relevant products and props that you use.
For example:
- Rather than focusing on Christmas, you can think of “Santa’s Elves”
- Instead of choosing Valentine as a theme, you can think of “Cupid and his friends”
Choose A Focal Point
While putting up your window display, you should walk across the street to check out a few things on your own. You should know about the items that are directly placed at your customer’s eye level, the focal point and if all the elements are properly placed including the ceiling art.
Emphasizing on the focal point is very essential as it becomes prominent to your customer regardless if he is standing on the right or left of the shop. Focal points help grab customer attention, pulling foot traffic to your store. You can also enhance the effect of the focal point by using geometrical objects such as sphere, triangle, or a pyramid structure.
Go Bold
As we continue to multi-task more and more, our attention span seems to be shrinking. Your typical consumer just spends a few milliseconds on signage and window displays and chances are the moment he passes by your shop, he will be busy using his phone. So you have to give in your best bet to ensure your window display stands out from all those distractions.
And if you hit the sweet spot, your consumers won’t stop but also take out time to capture pictures to share with the world. So how can you stand out from the crowd? You can be bold with colors, concepts and props. This means that you should start thinking outside the box and rather than choosing conventional, bold colours such as red, you can think any shade of neon. However, you need to be mindful of your brand image, keeping everything consistent by using a similar tone.
Props are also a great way to add uniqueness to your display. You can also use variety of materials such as cardboard and paper as long as you can incorporate them accordingly. Just think that you are an elementary student keeping aside your reservations and create something that is synonymous to your product as well as aesthetically pleasing.
Tone It Down
The biggest problem that lies in arranging window displays is that often retailers end up overdoing them, which in result repels their consumers rather than attracting them. Sometimes less is more and you can capitalize on the effect of few scattered products effectively.
While putting up your display, you should be mindful of the KISS (Keep It Simple Sweetheart) principle. It will help you draw your buyer’s attention towards your products rather than just simply showcasing a fancy display. You can also use a simple display to create a logic the way your products are lined up, creating a clutter free display.
Balancing Is The Key
Creating a display that stands out from a mirage of distractions isn’t easy. There is a multitude of things that you need to work with. From determining the aspects of object placement to lighting effect and colour scheming, you have to work on minutest details. However, the biggest task is balancing out all these objects in manner that they appear a part of a picture, not separate disconnected objects. They should also be aesthetically pleasing.
For example, you should always place darker items at the bottom and light coloured objects towards the top. You should avoid placing smaller objects on one side of the window and larger objects on the other side. This would create an illusion of an unbalanced window display.
While creating a window display, pay heed to your own instincts and carefully observe what emotions the display is trying to evoke. A well balanced display is likely to send a message of happiness and contentment. On the other hand, unbalanced displays are a sign of instability and anxiety.
Lighting Plays A Part
For small scale businesses, lighting can be an extra cost. However, if you planning to make your customers stop, then this is an aspect that you cannot afford to ignore.
You should not use overhead lights as this would only create unattractive shadows of objects placed in your display window. Rather consider using lights on the sides and the front to give your objects 3D illusion.
