We talked previously, here at the Candles of Eden Blog, about having a selling plan for your inventory. While that posting dealt with having an overall selling plan for all your merchandise, you also need a plan for your display activities. Specifically, your front-end, highly visible, high-traffic displays. When you devote prime space in your store to specific products or inventory classifications, you have to consider four things. These are:

Display Theme

Display Time

Display Statistics

Display Schedule

Displaying your inventory will not be a chore when you make the above elements part of your display plans.

Display Theme

Too many retailers out there see a front-end display as a place to stick a myriad of products hoping they will all sell “just because they are out front”. That’s the wrong approach to take with front displays. You want your display to have a clear purpose with a clear market segment in mind. You cannot appeal to all your customers with one display. Think of a supermarket that has a massive front-end display of the latest trendy children’s’ cereal. Is that display trying to entice very customer who enters that supermarket? While anyone may buy chocolate flavored, flying saucer shaped, or whatever cereal, it’s mainly going to be parents with young children. The supermarket is not marketing to their entire clientele. They are marketing to parents with young children who love new-wave cereals.

That’s why you need a focus for your displays. If you stock a front-end with a cornucopia of items, they will tend to be a blur that tries to offer everything to everyone. They end up offering not much to anyone because a confusing, busy, unorganized display leads to your customers bypassing the display. If you are going to display Candles of Eden soy candles, you may want to feature three of the most popular scents on a display. You can have “shelf-talkers” pointing your customers to where the rest of your SoyLuscious® Soy Candles are, but this display will focus on the top-three selling scents, arranged attractively to promote them. You are marketing this particular display to those customers who desire elegant, high quality soy candles with distinctive scents. Just like the supermarket children’s cereal display, your display is for a particular customer group.

Display Time

Knowing how long you want a particular display running is important as well. With prime candle selling season directly ahead, you may choose to display your Candles of Eden Products for a solid month or two. Of course, you will keep it fresh with different top-selling scents featured each week or so. The thing is you do not want to have any product line on a front display in the same configuration… ad infinitum over the course of a year.  You want different variations of even the same product line to keep the display fresh and vibrant. There comes a time when you will want to display an entire different inventory classification on a front display just to keep your customers’ “on their toes” and always looking for something new.

Display Statistics

It’s important to measure the effectiveness of your displays. You need to keep statistics on how a particular display is performing. This way you know if the time you and your staff spent maintaining the display and the inventory you invested in to keep it fully stocked was worth the return you received. Would you have sold the same amount of stock off a regular shelf section? You need to calculate how much extra product you believe you sold by having a display. This way you can decide whether to feature a particular product line in this way, at this specific time, in subsequent years.

Display Schedule

When each fiscal year begins, you should have a display schedule in place. If you change prominent front-end positions monthly then you should have the twelve product lines already identified when you start the year. This allows you to prepare advertising and promotional material, signage, and inventory requirements. It also allows you time to source suppliers, and train staff on the features of new product lines that may be part of these displays. When you prepare thoroughly for your display promotions, you can efficiently sell more from these displays.

Take the time to plan your “display selling”. Know what you will sell from your displays for the next 12 months. Prepare your staff for these promotions. Prepare your inventory requirements, such as your SoyLuscious® Soy Candles needs, for these times. Keep track of how much product you are actually selling off your displays. Have a definite time you want each display theme to run. Then get selling those Candles of Eden and other quality lines from these “prime real estate” locations of your retail business.