This month we worked on completely transforming their furniture & home space to increase sales and customer inspiration. Megan Warner is a local furniture upcycler in Wellinborough, who sells her fabulous revamped furniture pieces in the Emporium.

The furniture space was previously not styled and looked very over crowded with merchandise, that it was difficult for customers to shop the space effectively. The new space comprises of a central feature wall, styled with Cole & Son’s wallpaper and dressed to give the customer interior inspiration. All furniture is now accessible for customers to browse and the unique features on Megan’s pieces are now clear to appreciate. We also added a digital screen with video content showing Megan at work creating her furniture pieces, which helps to tell the story of her brand and business to the customer.

It was fantastic to see that Megan has already sold three of her furniture pieces already this week !

During the Spring I had the pleasure of teaching the retail team at Big Mat, a well renowned DIY retail store in Malta.

Owners, Carl and Noel Attard asked me to write a bespoke online Visual Merchandising Course for their retail team. 

I wrote a bespoke online program which ran over four class sessions. The bespoke program was run as live online classes and I scheduled a practical exercise after each class. The practical exercise was linked to the subjects we had covered during that lesson, giving the attendees the opportunity to be able to put the Visual Merchandising techniques into practice within the store. 

The bespoke course focused upon teaching the team the key principles of Visual Merchandising and how these can be implemented effectively to ensure both creative and commercial success. Carl and Noel wanted a strong focus on revamping their large store window area, front entrance and in store promotional space. 

It’s always amazing to hear how our past students are progressing with their career’s in the Visual Merchandising industry, this month I would like to feature our past student, Roxanne Gates and some of her fabulous styling she is now creating for M&S.

I had the pleasure to teach Roxanne when she booked onto our online Introduction to Visual Merchandising in October last year and I am so pleased to hear that Roxanne is now working as a Stylist on the Visual Merchandising team for M&S ! Roxanne is working in the M&S store in Warrington,the flagship store for Merseyside and a M&S Academy store. She is very proud to be part of the team that are helping to set the Visual Merchandising standards for the North West of England!

Roxanne has allowed me to share some examples of her fantastic mannequin styling created in her store….

This month I am launching a new 1 day online live workshop 

Introduction into Visual Merchandising & Window Display Online Course

Our group online Introduction Course into effective Visual Merchandising & Window Dressing techniques for today’s retailers. Focusing upon techniques suitable for both Fashion and 3D Merchandise.
This live, interactive workshop with me is run via our Zoom classroom and has a maximum of 5 attendees per class to allow for me to support all attendees during the classes.
These 1 day workshops run every Thursday from 9.00am until 15.00pm UK time.
Course certificates are awarded to each attendee upon attendance of the workshop.

Price £99.00 per person

For more info and to book ;

https://visualmerchandisingcourses.simplybook.it/v2/#book

This month I ran an online webinar for The University of the Arts London focusing upon Visual Merchandising tips and techniques for Digital Retail. Taking inspiration from my industry knowledge which I have gained particularly over the past year, while working with many digital retail clients. Where I have been working with these businesses to assist with improving their online Visual Merchandising across their E-Commerce stores.

Click the title to find out more

I am very proud to share with our blog readers my recent online student, Michelle Saville’s amazing coursework !

Michelle enrolled on both my Introduction and Advanced Online Visual Merchandising Courses this month and created these fantastic pieces of coursework themed around the London Department Store, Selfridges, focusing upon the current consumer trends of 2021. Michelle created a series of window designs, in store hot spot areas and we designed a pop up store space focusing upon the theme of Re connection to Nature.

Michelle has a huge passion and flair for the Visual Merchandising industry and I would like to take this opportunity to wish her every success for her future career ! 

If you would like to take a look at more of Michelle’s work please visit her Instagram page ;

www.instagram.com/shells.designs/

All images copyright of Michelle Saville

This month it was great to be carrying out some in house face-to-face Visual Merchandising training with the staff at St. Albans Museums in Hertfordshire.

Working with the teams at St Albans Museums has been a project particularly close to my heart due to visiting the Verulamium Museum as a child and now living very close to St Albans.

St Albans have two museums which both have links to the amazing local history. I worked with both teams to introduce them to the key Visual Merchandising principles and how these can be applied within the merchandising and presentation of both museum shops. The training was part theory , part practical. Spending most of the time within each shop implementing the practical Visual Merchandising principles I was teaching the teams. 

The training helped to boast the team’s confidence with Visual Merchandising which will assist them with their product presentation, link selling and store layouts which they are now working on as a team ready for their re-opening later in the Spring.

I have included photographs of the mosaic floors which are on show at the Verulamium Museum, these were all excavated within the St Albans area and are said to be ” the finest mosaics outside of the Mediterranean.” The museum is built on the site of one of the largest Roman cities in Britain, well worth a visit ! 

During the month of February I have been sharing some of my recommended Visual Merchandising tips and techniques to assist you when working with E-Commerce.

Tip 1 – Three of the key VM principles Symmetrical, Repetition and Alternation are great techniques to consider when creating a layout of an E-Commerce site. 

Tip 2 – Creating a symmetrical layout with your banners, text and product images on your website is more pleasing on the eye of our customers. A symmetrical layout allows customers to look at and see the entire page content with more ease and view the information quickly, with more impact.

All images copyright of VMC

After working with the HTA ( The Horticultural Trade Association ) for over 5 years running their Visual Merchandising training for their Garden Centre members. I am very excited to be running their VM yearly development program which is new for 2021. Please find further details below on the program which is available to all HTA members ;

The most effective training you’ll find on how to develop your instore and website visual merchandising, specifically targeted towards garden retailers.

The Program will include ;

Monthly one-to-one online meetings with me, where I will be giving each attendee individual feed back and the opportunity for me to answer any of your specific questions.
Monthly Visual Merchandising practical challenges, where members can practice their newly learnt skills within their store.
Access to the HTA VM development programme forum on Facebook Workplace, where you can share and upload inspiring content and best practice.
Opportunity to book bespoke in house Visual Merchandising training course for your entire team with me at a reduced HTA member rate.

For further details and for booking please find the link to the HTA website page ;

HTA | Visual Merchandising Development Programme