Retail Therapy
How to keep things checking at the register If you’re like most of the retailers Glenn Calabrese visits, your store is either underdesigned and cluttered, or overdesigned and inefficient. “Most independent retailers do not realize how much of an impact design has,” says the president of Storetech, a Delray Beach, Florida–based firm offering a range of products and services for retailers, including consulting. “Most are either underdesigned and have merchandise thrown all over the place, or they realize they want a showpiece and have gone to someone who doesn’t understand merchandising and how a customer shops, and so they build a monument that doesn’t do anything for selling merchandise.” Successful retailing is more scientific than it may seem. Here are some tips from Storetech, plus three other retail suppliers, on how to make your boutique both well designed and financially prosperous. Less is more First off, says Calabrese, understand that no two retailers are exactly the same. Their product, price points, and customer demographics will all have slight variations. “If you have a highend luxury boutique selling one-of-a-kind items, there’s a specific design that’s done for that compared to a mass-market merchandiser.” For the independent fashion boutique, service is the most important factor in success. Products should be grouped together, with a savvy sales staff that offers suggestions. Never assume your customer is too sophisticated, says Calabrese. “If you help your customers put merchandise together, you will increase your sales because they will buy that whole grouping instead of just one piece.” Most retailers tend to keep their inventory levels high. This is a mistake, says Calabrese. “You don’t want to show a dozen examples of one piece of merchandise. You want to show a size range with a few pieces in each size. My job is to create perceived value, meaning when customers look at that $20 T-shirt they think it’s a good deal. If you overmerchandise, then it becomes a commodity item that’s not special.” Overmerchandising also leads to a cramped environment that prevents customers from making decisions. Storetech recently convinced one of its clients prone to overmerchandising to go into thelast Holiday season with 30 percent less inventory than usual. Though the owners were terrified they wouldn’t have enough goods, the store ended up posting a 15 to 18 percent sales increase. “There was enough room for the customers to shop,” explains Calabrese. “They didn’t feel confined, so they could spend more time in the store.” And it’s not just the amount of inventory on the store floor that’s important, but where it’s placed. Once customers are lured inside—and there needs to be something in the window “to grab them emotionally,” says Calabrese—they need about four steps worth of space to orient themselves. That means the front part of the store should be devoted to display, not merchandising. Once customers have taken their several steps into the store, “88 percent of the population naturally goes to the right. And they scan from left to right, so their first visual point would be at a 45-degree angle to the entry. So that’s a strategic location for selling.” As for ringing up sales, the location of the cash register is key to efficiency as well as security and will depend on the particulars of each retail space. Since most independent retailers staff their stores leanly, “[the fact that there are few people on staff] becomes key when positioning the cash register and how you can control the store while still ringing up sales.” Finally, don’t be afraid to carve out a specific niche. “The mistake that most independents make is thinking they have to be everything to everybody,” says Calabrese. “Instead of spending their resources on the top three items in a category, they’ll go a lot deeper than that because they desperately want to make a sale. Then they overmerchandise and the customer walks in and has sensory overload and can’t make a decision.” Function follows form Decades ago, high-end retailers would use live models and stage private fashion shows for top customers. Today, mannequins give the mass consumer an immobile version of the same. New York–based Mondo Mannequins boasts “the largest capacity of mannequin production in the world, with 2,000 full mannequins per week produced,” says CEO Barry Rosenberg. The company once received an order from The Limited for 18,000 forms to be delivered in three months, “and we were the only company on the planet to be able to do that.” Mannequins are best used in store windows, says Rosenberg, where they help lure customers inside: “Dramatic interpretations with mannequins are a huge attention- getter for an apparel store.” The more expensive a mannequin (they top out at around $2,000), the more likely they’re to be used for dramatic purposes in a window rather than to sell product on the retail floor. Mondo’s typical mannequins are made of fiberglass and run about $750, but development costs can go as high as $20,000 if a specific pose or look is required. The company uses a sculptor to create the first sample, and much of the development cost goes to this artistic handwork. Abstract mannequins, often headless, are generally favored by fashion-forward boutiques that want a look that is more artistic than realistic. “Abstract mannequins actually draw attention more to the clothing than the mannequin itself,” says Rosenberg. “And headless mannequins go out of style less frequently.” Realistic mannequins also requireconstant grooming by a store’s visual merchandiser, Rosenberg says. And, strange as it sounds, mannequin hands are commonly stolen. Nevertheless, the current trend is for mannequins that more closely reflect today’s consumer. There is a greater demand for ethnic models, says Rosenberg, especially for the growing Hispanic market. Mondo is also receiving more orders for maternity mannequins and ones with larger body types. “A lot of retailers are saying, ’Our typical consumer is not going to be a size 4 but a size 14,’ and they want to give a more realistic representation of how that garment is going to look on the potential buyer. So we’re making a lot more plus-size mannequins, and not just for plus-size stores.” Getting the hang of it Hangers may seem like an afterthought in retail design, but actually they are a vital element in presenting clothes tastefully, as well as enhancing a store’s overall image and atmosphere. “The idea of the hanger is to present the clothing without taking away from the image of the store,” says Jeff Fuchs, sales manager at Styles Hanger. “You don’t want them to take away from the clothes by being too flashy, but you do want them to enhance the store.” Custom orders are a specialty. Styles can etch a store’s logo on a hanger, make it in custom materials from wood to padded fabric, and make them extra large with notches to hold up and keep the shape of fine cashmere sweaters. High-end boutiques have lately been opting for metal or cast-iron hangers, says Fuchs. Call it industrial chic. “Hangers are the last thing in the store the owner looks at. But it’s just as important as any other fixture because it’s so closely associated with the clothing. And we’re here to enhance the image of the store and make the buying experience as enjoyable as possible.” Art smart Store walls need to be covered with something. Some stores hang art. Others use the space to draw customers to specific items. For this, some sort of sign is needed. Advanced Innovative Technologies has recently unveiled something called the Fabric Frame System that is finding a following among several high-end retail chains. Developed in Germany by CSS Imaging and distributed in the Western Hemisphere by AIT, the sign system uses an aluminum frame with a special silicone lining to hang digitally transferred, dye-sublimated images printed on fabric. The result is tremendously vibrant color and print quality that can be easily snapped in and out of the frame. And the fabric provides much more visual interest than printing on vinyl or paper. “What you get as far as color is concerned and quality of the end product is pretty spectacular,” says AIT president Dave Wills. And since the image can be easily changed, fashion retailers can add new ones each season, or even more often— such as to draw attention to a sale in a particular part of the store. And while the Fabric Frame System works in store windows and at trade shows, “Retailers will best take advantage of it at point-of-purchase where they have walls with space,” says Wills. Wills calls the signs “not inexpensive”: a 16-square-foot sign runs about $350. Visit acclaim2frame.com for more information.
