RetailSource: Retail Design, Construction and Visual Merchandising

RetailMob.com Launches B2B Daily Deals for Independent Retailers. Get 50% or More Off Displays, Signs, Store Supplies, Advertising and More.

njohnson — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:34:57 +0000

RetailMob.com has launched a new B2B Daily Deals site for Independent Retailers. Store owners get 50% or more off on displays, signs, store supplies, fixtures, lighting, advertising, merchandise, professional services, employee training, business software and more. The site is dedicated to helping independent retailers be successful.

In this tough economy independent store owners need every break they can get. Many retailers are giving great discounts to their customers via sites like Goupon and Living Social. RetailMob.com is the only Business to Business Daily Deal site focused exclusively on serving the business, store operations, and visual merchandising needs of independent retailers. At RetailMob.com retailers get the deals!

RetailMob.com offers a free sign-up to retail store owners. Just go to RetailMob.com for an easy email sign-up. Get an email when great new B2B deals are available. Check it out!

Increasing Positive Cash Flow and Inventory Management Software

Margot_McClelland — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:51:31 +0000

Managing cash flow in a small business is crucial, especially if you want to get your feet off the ground. But you can’t simply worry about selling and revenues. You know you also need to tightly manage cost. Even then, you can easily fall short if customers don’t pay in a timely manner, but you pay your suppliers promptly. Then there’s all that money tied up in work in progress or inventory on hand, and you may not realize the full cost of carrying inventory. Did you know that you could make a profit and still not be able to pay the bills? From accounts receivable to inventory management software, here are some tips to manage cash flow.

Cash flow can be managed by calculating your company’s cash conversion cycle. In layman’s terms, the cash conversion cycle is how long it takes for you to convert the resources you spend on inventory, sales efforts, and production into cash. Typically, a company gets inventory on credit, which becomes their accounts payable. Customers then buy their products on credit, which becomes their accounts receivable. The cash conversion cycle ends when the company has collected actual cash from customers and when the company has paid for inventory, property, and equipment. Figure out how much time, in days, your company’s cash conversion cycle takes. Once you figure this out, you can start strategizing ways to speed up the cycle and see cash flow sooner.

Keeping your accounts receivable policies in check is one of the most important ways for you to manage your cash flow. You should make your accounts receivable policies strict to make sure that customers pay you on time. Try not to send out merchandise before you’ve received payment. Always send out invoices to customers as soon as possible. If customers want to pay with credit for considerably expensive goods and services, you can do a credit history background check on them to ensure that they will be able to pay you regularly on time. Don’t be afraid to charge a late fee to customers who don’t pay on time. You can also send them notifications by email, phone, or snail mail to remind them of what they owe you. Once you have some long-term customers, you may want to look into creating an accounts receivable aging report. This will allow you to monitor the payment patterns of your regular customers, and it will allow you to know which ones may need a nudge every once in a while to be reminded to pay.

You should also figure out how to work your accounts payable to your advantage. Your goal should always be to get the most cash flowing into the company as quickly as possible. You don’t want to get paid slower than you are paying. Look for flexible payment plans from vendors, and wait as long as possible to pay your vendors. Just be careful and pay your bills before deadlines pass. You don’t want to ruin your company’s credit. A bad company credit score can make it really hard to expand your company when you’re ready to. You can set up an electronic funds transfer system with the bank to pay your bills. This will allow you to pay them the day they are due, rather than having to send out money several days before.

Keeping track of inventory can get can be tough, but it doesn’t have to be. Most people tie up the bulk of their money in raw materials, work in progress, and final goods inventory. It’s hard to manage all of this without the help of inventory management software. Check out inventory management software options online. This type of software lets you monitor your inventory, orders, and shipments easily. Having quick access to inventory information allows you to keep track of what you’re selling and how much of a profit you are making from it. This information can be used to help you figure out what inventory you are carrying but not selling, so you’ll know to order less of it in the future. You should also look into more tips about managing your inventory and cash flow. Business self-help websites and books about cash flow are good places to start.

Every new business must successfully master how to manage cash flow. Understanding your cash conversion cycle, being conscious of accounts receivable and accounts payable, and using inventory management software will help you master the art of increasing positive cash flow.

8 Ways to Use Visual Merchandising in Your Storefront Window Displays to Improve Sales

Linda_Cahan — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:43:40 +0000

Perk up Your Sales With Improved Visual Merchandising.

“If you build it, they will come” is wishful thinking. If you build a store they may come but there’s no guarantee. As with all things in our lives it takes a good balance of many elements to stay healthy, enjoy life and have a successful, thriving retail business.

One of these essential elements is Visual Merchandising. VM encompasses everything you experience as you walk up to, into and through a store. Your image starts on the street with your façade, sign, front door and windows. If a potential customer isn’t attracted to what they see on the outside they are not likely to come inside to shop.

Storefront Image and Signage

Your façade is not always within your control but you can control its cleanliness. A clean sign, door, window and building say to your customers that you care about them, the neighborhood and your merchandise. As for coordinating your interior and exterior image, the sign tells customers if your store is elegant, funky, fun, junior, for children or adults, creative or conservative. Your interior store design and displays will ideally coordinate with your exterior sign image.

Window Displays That Tell a Story

Your store window displays give potential customers even more information. A window filled with merchandise like the old Woolworths looks disorganized and generally low cost. An expensive, elegant window often shows minimal merchandise well lit and simply presented. Space equals price. A traditional merchandise display may show items balanced in a classic manner with both sides perfectly matched with something larger in the center. A more creative display may have some things hanging from the ceiling interacting with the sitting merchandise in some way. Any type of original artwork will shout out “creative” as well. The addition of a sense of humor (that works for the morals and values of your community) is always a plus.

A great window display inspires people to come in. It speaks to them. It’s really that simple. It’s always a challenge to come up with ideas, money and time for good window displays. One of the biggest mistakes some storeowners make is giving up almost before they begin. Although displays may seem daunting they are well worth the effort. If you don’t feel comfortable doing them there may be someone on your staff, in your family or a friend who is excited by the prospect. Enthusiasm goes a long way!

First, in order for your windows to have an impact they need to have decent lighting. This means commercial quality spotlights that are mounted to the window wall and shoot down onto the front of the display. Lighting the top of the display is useless. In a perfect world displays should be changed every two weeks. Any longer and they become wallpaper. People don’t see them any longer; they just know they are there. If you change your displays more often people will become accustomed to looking at your windows to see if they’ve changed. Your storefront becomes a part of their daily habit and, as a result, your store will stay in their conscious mind.

Simple Ways to Attract Attention to Your Storefront Window Displays:

1. Use a strong color story and stay in the bright, warm tones. The fewer colors you use the more people will notice the window. For example, pull together all yellow merchandise and mix it with some black or white. Keep it simple and it will sell!

2. There are three basic shapes that work well in a window: repetitive pieces in a horizontal row, a centered display, and a mix of merchandise in a triangular shape.

3. Any time you add strong angles they attract interest but make sure your angles lead people into your front door – not to the store next door!

4. Movement attracts attention like nothing else. A train set going in circles with cards or small gift items poking out of the open cars will have people stopping on the street and staring. Billowing fabric, anything hanging down that’s moving all equal attention grabbers.

5. Cute works! If you carry plush animals arrange them in a window so they are doing something together. When they interact and tell a story people will pay attention.

6. A large, simple, cutout image is a great backdrop for merchandise. Sintra board or gator board are two materials that come in 4’x8’ sheets. They are rigid and need to be cut by a saber saw. Sintra comes in a limited color selection but it’s plastic based and won’t warp or fade. Gator board comes in several thicknesses, rarely warps and can be painted easily. Foamcore is affordable, lightweight, semi-rigid and easy to cut but may warp when painted and will dent easily. You can think beyond traditional flat materials: corrugated cardboard, chicken wire filled in with lights or woven with ribbons… use your imagination.

For outsized images, consider a huge sunflower, hot pink heart, big egg, ornament, pumpkin or any other classic holiday image cut out and hanging in your window with a honed selection of merchandise in front. It’s a look that people driving by will notice and make note of for a future visit.

7. Google or visit Bergdorf Goodman, Barney’s and Anthropologie windows. While you may not be able to replicate their looks, get inspired by their creativity and use of unusual materials for props. Each of these stores breaks all the traditional rules and thrives as a result of their chutzpah.

8. Look at buying my book “100 Displays Under $100” either in print or (for less money) in PDF form. I’ve included ideas from visual merchandisers all over the country. The book is in recipe format with each page having a short explanation, needs (ingredients) and sequence (how to set it up) section.

About the Author

Please check out www.lindacahan.com for more information or email me at lindacahan@gmail.com.

Linda Cahan is a retail visual merchandising expert with extensive experience with all types of retail environments and merchandise. Linda consults, teaches, gives seminars, trains and writes on visual merchandising and store design. Living in the Portland, OR area, Linda travels all over the US and internationally for her work as well as teaches Visual Merchandising locally at The Art Institute of Portland.

Retail Store Shopping Trends for the 2011 Holiday Season

njohnson — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:38:39 +0000

Here are two different viewpoints on retail store shopping trends for the 2011 Holiday season.

Viewpoint ShopperTrak: Less 2011 Holiday in-store foot traffic

The first comes from ShopperTrak — the world’s largest provider of retail foot traffic counting, managed services and business analytics. So this is the measured, non-emotional approach based on tracking in-store activity at over 25,000 locations nationwide. Ok, brick and mortar retailers, read it and weep!

“Holiday sales and traffic historically account for approximately 20 percent of annual retail activity. With U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth disappointing in the first half of 2011, the forecast indicating holiday retail sales and traffic is a key marker of the nation’s economic health. ShopperTrak’s 3.0 percent holiday sales increase prediction follows 19 consecutive months of year-over-year U.S. retail sales growth. The expected increase is moderate compared to the 2010 holiday season’s 4.1 percent sales increase over 2009.

Conversely to sales, ShopperTrak expects foot traffic to continue decreasing through the end of 2011, due to high unemployment rates and gas prices seeing a 33 percent increase this season over last. So far this year, shoppers have visited an average of 3.10 stores per shopping trip, down from 3.19 per shopping trip in 2010 and far less than the four to five stores visited in early 2008 — prior to the recession. Converting fewer numbers of shoppers to buyers has never been more important for retailers who understand this critical retail health indicator.”

Viewpoint Trendwatching: More shoppers want the real life experience!

Now for another viewpoint, one based on the human drive to seek out interaction and experience. This is the emotional side of retail, and one we prefer to focus on because, unlike international economic struggles, it is within the power of every retailer to influence and leverage to produce more sales and customer satisfaction. Measured in a different way than ShopperTrak, Rainier Evers uses the the observations and input of over 8,000 trendwatchers worldwide to take the pulse of retail. Here is his 2011 shopping prediction for a RETAIL RENAISSANCE.

” Smart retailers are defying doom and gloom scenarios, as they realize that shopping in the real world will forever satisfy consumers’ deep rooted needs for human contact, for instant gratification, for the promise of (shared) experiences, for telling stories. Hence the flurry of new formats, technologies, capabilities, and products that now are delighting retail customers around the world.”

He carries on with four specific ways that in-store is beating online as the shopping experience of choice. Don’t miss Trend Watching. Always a great site for insight and inspiration.

Retail Brand Strategy…Defining Who You’re Not

Scott_Truitt — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 06:46:02 +0000

Whether in our personal lives or in the business world we largely define ourselves by association with, or contrast to others. And when doing that, whether they are believers in the Law of Attraction, or whether they’re just too afraid to draw a line in the sand that excludes any potential customers, most retailers speak more on the positive than the negative when it comes to defining their brand. They speak of how wonderful their products are, how they’ve got the best quality, the best service, the lowest price… they provide the best value in the market.

In my experience, however, it is becoming increasingly important to be just as clear about who you are not as it is who you are. I’ll admit for the record that I am a believer in the Law of Attraction (among many other universal and branding laws), and as such I prefer not to dwell on the negative myself. Having said that, however, I find that focusing only on the positive can lead by default to the precarious position of becoming a “me-too” brand. Who, for instance, doesn’t believe that they have the best quality products, the best service, and the lowest price (or at least the best value for the money)? These are no longer defining characteristics of a brand. In today’s retail climate, you must define to the Nth degree who you are, what you stand for, who you are trying to connect with, and on what shared interest or common value. And a large part of that is in defining who you are not.

Case in point: Aries Apparel, a women’s athletic apparel store in the Portland, Oregon area. As part of the brand strategy phase of designing Aries Apparel, we discussed at length the key brand identity characteristics of the company, including who and what Aries Apparel is not. Had we stuck to the positive description of the brand, Aries Apparel’s brand image may have come off looking like a mixture of other women’s athletic apparel stores which in recent years have struggled to connect with the young athletic female demographic. By discussing who and what Aries Apparel is not we discovered some key identity elements that informed who and what Aries Apparel is.

Without naming names, Aries Apparel is not:

A big box store with a deep inventory but limited, generic selection. They are specialized, passionate experts, and they carry apparel and equipment that customers can’t find elsewhere.
A fashionista store for women who like to wear athletic apparel to the mall. The women and girls who shop at Aries Apparel actually play sports, and they play them hard.
A discount store. Aries Apparel offers a broad range of apparel and equipment for female athletes at various skill levels. But they do not offer low-end merchandise that will not stand up to the performance expectations of the serious athlete.
For boys. Aries Apparel is focused on providing female athletes with the range and selection of athletic apparel and equipment that previously had only been available to male athletes. Prior to Aries Apparel’s launch, in fact, many female athletes found themselves wearing and using men’s equipment just to be able to find something that fit their performance needs. Not anymore. As their tagline says, “We don’t have anything against boys. We just don’t want to wear their clothes.”

This clear vision for who you are informs not only how the store should be designed to engage with your target customer, but also what products to carry, what marketing channels to pursue, and what voice to use in communicating with your customer.

Clearly defining who you are not is half the battle.

For more retail design inspiration please Scott Truitt Brand Image Coach.

To connect with Aries Apparel, please visit www.ariesapparel.com.

Site Surveys, Fixture Installations, Graphic Change Outs, and Rebranding Help Retailers Survive the Downturn

njohnson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:16:16 +0000

While the retail industry as a whole has suffered over the past few years, some service companies have found a way to thrive by helping retailers maintain, update, and reinvent their brands more efficiently. Dynamic Resources is one of the best examples of companies helping retailers streamline the process of store construction, fixture installation, renovation, maintenance, graphic installation and site surveys throughout Europe and North America. One of the ironies of retailing is that this type of activity often increases during a downturn because retailers have to find the perfect presentation, as well as the perfect product and price point, needed to attract and retain a more discerning, money conscious customer.

Competing with national competitors such as Davaco, Nationwide, and The Beam Team, Dynamic has continued to grow during the tight economic conditions since 2008. With offices in both the US and the UK, Dynamic rolls out programs across the US and Europe. They are planning expansion into South America and the Far East as they see an increasing number of their retailer partners moving in this direction.

Gerry Walsh, Dynamic Managing Director in the UK points to several specific reasons they have been successful. Not suprisingly, service leads the list. Dynamic starts with an attitude that customer service, defined as constantly providing solutions, not problems, to their clients, is the foundation for all their activity. Another strong point is their extensive and long standing relationships with local installation and maintenance companies. Project managers marshal these resources for each project and they have a systematic approach that insures timely completion with the highest quality standards. Project information is available to retailers and the team online via their propietary iReact project management system.

More detail and an impressive series of photos from recent projects is available here.

Brewery Point of Purchase Displays from Tap Handles to Tee Shirts Build the Brand

njohnson — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:23:28 +0000

Designing POP displays for breweries has become big business. Developing brand elements that have inherent clarity and emotional engagement from tap room, to retail grocery display, to tee shirt and back again, is a challenge that is facing brewers in this rapidly growing retail segment. According to the Brewers Association, “Growth of the craft brewing industry in 2010 was 11% by volume and 12% by dollars compared to growth in 2009 of 7.2% by volume and 10.3% by dollars.” Not bad compared to a US economy that is stagnant in so many sectors.

One of the leading design and marketing companies in this segment is Taphandles.com. They take an integrated approach that says both quality product and state of the art marketing are needed to launch a successful brewing enterprise. They seek to discover the unique story that creates the brand and then illustrate that story consistently and with enthusiasm across all marketing channels from the establishment, to store, to online, and to related merchandise.

There is a unique opportunity for retail and hospitality designers who understand this approach and have an appreciation for the industry to collaborate with the brewer and the branding and display partner to enhance the success of the brewery and engage its loyal fans.

Retail Design Research Methodology: A Reading List for Retail Theory, Trends, and Innovation

njohnson — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:13:37 +0000

SonicRim creates design and innovation strategies for retailers with a focus on growth in emerging economies. They use Design, Market Research, Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology, to develop multiple perspectives on the challenge of retailing in an interconnected international marketplace. They offer seminars in Design Methodology and a Reading List on Methods, Theory, Trends, and Innovation. Check it out.

Interactive Store Window Display Mixes Video, Movement, and Product for Hermès

njohnson — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:33:41 +0000

This display visualizes the idea of emotional connection between a person and a product. Elegant and engaging.

You can find an excellent article on Hermès and their battle to stay independent on the Wall Street Journal’s online site. (Don’t miss the tab for the slide show.) Hermès is another example of a retailer / manufacturer that has global reach and leverages technology but grounds itself in craftsmanship and deep commitment to design. This window reflects that mind set.

Marimekko to Open Flagship Store in Manhatten, Creates Tennis Shoe Line with Converse

njohnson — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:29:52 +0000

It has been a busy year for Marimekko, one of our favorite manufacturer / retailers. Collaborating with Crate and Barrel they have committed to opening over 20 shop-in-shop locations throughout the US. Many of these stores have already opened. A new line of Converse tennis shoes for women made with Marimekko fabrics is in the works. They also have plans to launch a US targeted online e-commerce store and will be opening their US flagship store in the Fall of 2011 in Manhatten.

The US flagship will draw from the Helsinki flagship store and was designed by their in-house design team in cooperation with Japanese architectural firm IMA. While the Crate and Barrel shops-in-shops suffer a bit from having to carve out a presence within the jumble of the Crate and Barrel offering they are definitely a welcome spot of color in a sea of white and beige.

What we like about Marimekko, beyond the the simple clarity, color, and creativity of their ever evolving screenprint fabrics, is the commitment to craftsmanship, technology, and design that is the hallmark of some of the best small manufacturer / retailers. We recently posted about Meyer Wells, another firm that fits this mold. Marimekko combines the best modern production techniques with hands on craftspeople, meticulous quality control, and a very high degree of creative freedom for their designers. There is an excellent short article in the latest issue of Dwell magazine, (unfortunately the article is not available online) that walks through the design and manufacturing process.

We are looking forward to the arrival of the US flagship store. According to Marimekko, “The new flagship store will be built as an experience-rich meeting place in which Marimekko’s varied colours and design idiom will lead the customer from one inspiring mood to the next. The range will embrace all product lines, and it is intended for the shop to act as a showcase for new products in particular.”

Here is a look at the new Converse line: