Five Fresh And Fabulous Ideas For Retail Displays

Want your retail displays to have the Midas touch? That is, want them to turn what they touch into gold? Get you the most bucks for your bang? Seduce the crowds, hook, line and sinker? Make them fall in love with the atmosphere in your store and declare loyalty to your products (or vice versa)?

Yes, of course you do!

Here are five fresh takes on retail displays that are sure to boost your spirits and your sales.

1. Arrange multiple units of an item symmetrically to make a serious visual impact. One bottle of bubbles is just a bottle of bubbles. A shelf full is just a bunch of bubbles. But a display case with 20 symmetrically arranged bottles of bubbles becomes art. (Try saying that five times in a row really quickly!) Lighting can really enhance this effect.

2. Free-standing displays, such as display towers or customizable free-standing frames work well with one item on each shelf or platform. A single high heel really catches the eye. A single blouse hung like a rose in bloom. If you go with one item on each shelf of a display tower, a good idea is to make them all the same color. Instant intrigue!

3. Color-coded end caps. This is a variation on number two, but functions as a group even more effectively than on its own. If each end cap retail display in your store is a solid color, but a different one, you can take customers' breath away with a rainbow effect. Whatever the objects may be, customers will be irresistibly drawn to their favorite.

4. Bring food into a non-food setting. If you're a food shop, this tip is not for you (although you could make a proposal to your non-food shop neighbors...), but maybe you could work with the reverse? But nothing is more delicious to the eye than chocolate bars in a dress shop. Or even, say, a pyramid of canned tomatoes. Are you working an Italy angle? Call me crazy, but watch your sales climb (and enjoy yummy snacks while you work...).

5. Spill it. Here's a fun idea to implement as well as view. Spill a box of small items all over the floor of your window display or your jewelry showcase. A sea of buttons, or tiny candy bars, or small toys--could be anything. A sea of screws is pretty to behold behind clean glass and with good lighting.

If you show your clientele that you've invested in artistic retail displays, but ones that are smart and simple in their conception and execution, I promise they'll keep coming back to your store. And every time they stop by, they'll simply have to buy one of those little [insert your dream sale item here!].