What is the role of Visual Merchandising?

Question

What aspects of Visual Merchandising affect the way you behave in a store?

Answer 1

Most people are familiar with the supermarket bread trick. Stores know that sales increase when shoppers are hungry and so they waft warm bakery smells through the air-conditioning system.

But what about other, more subtle forms of manipulation used in the high street – particularly during the sales?

Stepping into any store from a cold high street overwhelms the senses with smells, lights, sounds and a sudden change in temperature. Shoppers walking through the area just inside the door – called the dwell zone – are, so panic-stricken that's there's little point trying to sell them anything. Instead, this is a key area for influencing the shopper and dragging them deeper into the shop.

Department stores often use this space for escalators and directories. Fashion stores use it to promote "this season's look". In supermarkets, it's the place they put the "distress goods" – flowers, newspapers, cigarettes – that are bought in a hurry.

Behind the counters, the perfume boxes are laid out using a sales technique called triangular balance.

Triangular balance is used everywhere and it's very effective. It works on the idea that your eye will always go to the centre of a picture, Here, they put the biggest, tallest products with the highest profit margin in the centre of each shelf and arrange the other sizes around them to make it look attractive. When you look at the triangle on the shelf, your eye goes straight to the middle and the most expensive box." Once you've seen the most expensive (and, usually, best value for money) box, it's harder to plump for the cheaper bottle.

Shelf psychology is crucial to customer manipulation. Impulse buys are the weapon of choice. Umbrellas placed right by the door, the sweets by the till.

You may think that you are immune to impulse buys but in the rarefied and artificial environment of the store – with its straight lines, its bright lights, its bewildering bustle and its heady smells – our brains are surprisingly susceptible. The most profitable impulse buys and special offers are placed on aisle ends – and shops are designed to ensure you pass as many ends as possible.

There are so many ways to influence shoppers, I could go on all day.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

visual merchandising captures a shoppers attention - if they did not intend to go into a store i.e. a browser
for destination shoppers, it makes the shopping experience a more exciting one, especially if the display is "fresh". if you walk past the same store everyday and one day spot something different, you are more likely to entre the store. it also highlights new products and special offers to entice customers to spend more i.e. putting more money in the store's till

Answer 3

Makes you want to buy, sometimes calms you down or amps you up, and the more detailed the display, the more I'll look at it, but I'm a lot less likely to touch anything.

Answer 4

to see what you're buying....in person...also if something looks colorful or interesting then kids would want it...also if it makes noise.....so it effects people of all aspects...in particular its presentation

Answer 5

Go to the library to do your homework. Go now. Right now. Go on. You can do it. Oh and, read your text book. Lots of answers. K? Good.