Visual Merchandising Training For Ludlow Farmshop

This month I have had the pleasure of teaching a bespoke Visual Merchandising workshop for the Retail team at Ludlow Farmshop. They are in the process of opening up their new Gift Shop this Summer and required Visual Merchandising training prior to opening to support their team with merchandising and store layout techniques.

Creating an effective store layout is important to gain an improvement to your customer flow throughout your store and also create a more pleasurable, harmonious shopping experience for your customers. I wanted to share with you my top tips and techniques to being able to achieve a more effective store layout ;

Tips For Creating an Effective Store Layout

When considering an effective layout for your store observe how your customer journeys throughout your store.

What are your PUSH and PULL products?

Push merchandise are products that you would like to promote to your customers – new season, promotional and seasonal merchandise.

Pull merchandise are products or services areas which customers are always going to come into store for – core lines, changing rooms, cafe spaces and click and collect counters.

Research has shown that PUSH merchandise should be located towards the front of your store space and PULL merchandise positioned towards the rear of the store.

Ask yourself are these product lines positioned in the correct locations?

Ensure you have clear walkways which help to create good customer flow into quiet spaces within your store.

Curved fixtures create a more calming effect on the eye of the customer, hence creating a more pleasant shopping experience which will encourage the customer to spend more time in store.

When working with my retail customers I would usually divide a store floor plan into four areas,

Area 1 – The front space which contains the hot spot where your PUSH and seasonal, promotional products are located.

Area 2 – The secondary front area of the store where new merchandise is located. Think about positioning your PUSH merchandise here.

Area 3 – The central part of the store where fixtures can get slightly heavier, core merchandise is located and service areas like till points.

Area 4 – The rear of the store, where PULL merchandise and PULL departments are located.

Text is copyright of VMC.