Chapter 3: Tips for Updating Displays

Once you’ve decided it’s time to upgrade your display, you’ll have several critical decisions to make. You’ll need to pick the display type and style that will work best for your products. Various types of displays are available, and each achieves unique goals and works in different ways. First things first, you’ll need to understand what makes for a good display.

The best retail displays are eye-catching, fresh and timely. They engage consumers and align with current shopping trends. In this chapter, we’ll discuss some best practices for creating effective retail displays. If you’re looking to design a display that will promote brand awareness and generate sales, utilize the following tips.

What Makes a Good Display?

Many different factors can elevate a store display, allowing it to perform at the highest possible level. It’s crucial to focus on the details when creating a new display, ensuring that you follow all best practices for the strongest result.

How Do You Display a Product Effectively?

Here are some of the elements of an effective product display:

1. Variation: Displays have to be fresh and new to garner interest. Varied displays help ward off display fatigue.
2. Seasonality: Customer attitudes and priorities change with the seasons, and displays should match those shifts. For instance, consumers are less concerned about necessity during the winter holidays. Even the weather itself impacts consumers, who tend to spend more with greater exposure to sunlight. Paying attention to seasonal trends can help make product displays more effective.
3. Placement: It’s also vital to consider the way customers navigate stores. A display’s placement affects how well it performs. For instance, endcap displays are effective because customers can see them without walking into an aisle. In addition, keeping relevant displays together can improve convenience and lead to increased sales.
4. Visuals: The best displays catch the viewer’s interest — they’re not dull or overwhelming. They make effective use of color, texture, lighting and other visual factors.
5. Interaction: Some of the most successful displays are ones that encourage customers to touch, feel and engage with the product or the display itself.

How Do You Develop an Effective Display?

A lot of thought goes into a compelling visual display. It’s essential to spend some time strategizing and planning your displays, keeping best practices in mind. Consider the following factors to help you design the right display for your products.

How Can You Improve Your Retail Displays?

If you’re looking to update your retail displays with new designs, you’ll want to keep quite a few things in mind. Here are some ways you can improve your displays:

1. Encourage Customers to Interact With Products

Some of the best retail displays encourage customer interaction. Giving customers a reason to engage with your display can earn their attention and make your products stand out. One way to promote interaction is to include “try me” messaging. Another idea is to offer unpackaged sample products on your display, which customers can test out.

It’s always a good idea to create an opportunity for a social media share by making your display some kind of photo opportunity. Interactive displays inspire customers to learn more about your products, which builds brand awareness and promotes purchases.

2. Educate Shoppers When Needed

If your products require some explanation, use visuals and text to provide a short description. Customers need to know what your products are and what purpose they serve. Any gaps in comprehension could lead to ignored displays, while a simple explanation can make your product seem new and exciting and communicate its value to the customer.

3. Use Cross-Merchandising

Cross-merchandising tactics are a great way to promote sales — it’s the practice of marketing or displaying products from different categories together. You might also see this tactic called “add-on” sales or “incremental purchase” sales. You can engage in cross-merchandising with clever displays.

When possible, create displays with products that go together. For instance, Oliver Winery used a display to pair chips and salsa with their sangria. The display contains multiple bottles of the company’s sangria alongside chips and salsa, encouraging customers to buy a snack and drink at the same time. This form of cross-merchandising is proven to increase customer spending. A customer looking for a bag of chips might also pick up a jar of salsa and a bottle of wine.

4. Choose the Right Display Type for Your Product

Displays come in all shapes and sizes. One of the most critical aspects of creating a successful display is choosing the best display type for your product. Think about whose attention you want to attract and what you want to accomplish. In addition, consider the dimensions and nature of your products. We’ll discuss the details of different types of displays later on in this guide.

5. Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes

A fundamental part of any marketing technique is to think from the perspective of the customer. Retail displays are no exception. Before implementing a new display, try to think from your customer’s perspective. Consider displays that have made an impact on you and why. Brainstorm ways you might evoke an emotional response and earn a customer’s attention.

6. Consider the Season

Customer attitudes change with the seasons, so your product displays should change, too. For instance, you can adjust your product displays for the winter holidays. With your imagery and messaging, emphasize the spirit of giving, warmth and familiar comfort. Using the same color scheme and messaging all year long may make your displays come across as irrelevant or untimely, while seasonal displays cater to customers’ current interests.

How Can You Get Better at Visual Merchandising?

Visual merchandising plays a significant role in any effective retail display. Successful displays require in-depth knowledge of visual merchandising principles and techniques. Here are some tips to help you improve your visual merchandising:

• Pay attention to lighting: Lighting is always an important part of anything involving visuals. The placement, hue and severity of the lighting will completely change the way customers see your products. Most retail stores use overhead fluorescent lighting, which can create heavy shadows. Keep that in mind when designing your display’s graphics and layout.
• Pay attention to colors: Color is one of the most significant aspects of visual marketing. Colors have psychological associations — for example, purple and gold suggest luxury, while blue feels cool and refreshing. Different colors will affect customer moods and behaviors in different ways. Learn how to implement color theory in your product displays.
• Create dimension: If your display is too “flat,” customers might overlook it. When designing your displays, focus on creating depth. A three-dimensional visual caters to the way our brains are hardwired. Look for opportunities to create three-dimensional pop-out items or optimize the shape of your display.
• Avoid clutter: A display should be interesting but not overwhelming — too much going on can make customers unsure of where to look. Create a purposeful focal point and keep messaging simple, with cohesive colors throughout.

How Do You Determine if a Display Is Effective?

Once you’ve created a retail display, you’ll need to know how to track its performance. An easy way to measure how well a display is performing is to track your sales from each retailer where your displays are located. You might even try putting different displays in different stores so you can compare the results. Similarly, you might swap out your displays with new versions every so often, keeping track of how well each one does.

Learn More About Creating Effective Retail Displays

Creating a compelling product display can be a complex task. It requires careful attention to your customer’s point of view. If you want product displays that promote brand awareness and generate sales, be sure to choose the right kind of displays for your products, paying close attention to the psychology of visual merchandising.

Everything from your product placement to your color scheme and messaging will impact your display’s effectiveness.

Learn more about creating successful displays for your products. Here at Creative Displays Now, we can help you design the most effective displays. To learn more, call us at 1-866-244-2214.