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VISUAL MERCHANDISING CHALLENGES IN SPECIALITY STORES

Guest post by: Linda Cahan

Article Overview: This article was written for a retail magazine in India: Huge corporations or “Mom & Pops” can own specialty stores, but two things they have in common are their customer service and their focus on a limited product line. Unlike a hypermarket, a specialty store is small, edited and generally clear about who makes up their customer base. The Visual Merchandising staff is the eyes and ears of a specialty store. Their role is to make sure the image of the store stays on target, on brand and current. Along with the pluses and pleasures of working in a smaller store, some challenges exist for the management and visual merchandisers that vary depending upon whether the specialty store is owned by a corporation or a family.

VISUAL MERCHANDISING CHALLENGES IN SPECIALITY STORES

Huge corporations or “Mom & Pops” can own specialty stores, but two things they have in common are their customer service and their focus on a limited product line. Unlike a hypermarket, a specialty store is small, edited and generally clear about who makes up their customer base.

The Visual Merchandising staff is the eyes and ears of a specialty store. Their role is to make sure the image of the store stays on target, on brand and current.

Along with the pluses and pleasures of working in a smaller store, some challenges exist for the management and visual merchandisers that vary depending upon whether the specialty store is owned by a corporation or a family.

Staffing

If a large corporation such as Nike or Pantaloon owns a specialty store, most of the staffing issues are taken care of by the corporate human resources department. Interviews may be done locally but often the person interviewing is visiting from the corporate office. They may not know some of the local issues, customs and challenges that people in that particular area live with on a daily basis.

A good Visual Merchandiser needs to be:

Physically healthy and strong, intelligent, creative, able to get along well with others and a self-starter. This person must know how to solve problems, use tools, climb ladders as well as have computer skills such as Illustrator, PhotoShop and whatever other programs that are required by the company.

A good VM is a Renaissance person with a wide variety of skills. One of the most important skills is flexibility of mind. A huge challenge for many people in this field is the need to be flexible on an hourly basis. When hiring someone, it would be essential to find out how well this person can deal with changes in his or her routine and if she or he were able to come up with more than one solution to a problem. In a smaller store the visual merchandiser often wears many “hats” and is called on to do a wide variety of jobs.

When hiring a new VM it’s vital that all the possible responsibilities are spelled out for that person so they know from the start what will be expected of them. In this way misunderstandings will be avoided and the new hire will not be able to say “this isn’t what I was hired to do.” Work hours should be clearly stated as well as break times, overtime expectations, holidays and so on.

Being vague with a new employee is a guarantee of confusion and potential anger over time – from both the new VM and management.

Check references before the person is hired. I’ve seen this in the US where references were checked after the VM started work. What resulted was a lack of trust in the new hire that turned out to be for a good reason. A lot of time and money were wasted on training and paperwork all because the references weren’t checked beforehand.

Training

No matter how large or small the specialty store, visual merchandising training is usually a neglected topic. Store managers need to pretend they are receiving a visit from the CEO of their corporation or, for the Mom & Pops, from the matriarch of the family each morning.

A simple training program can be developed for any type of specialty store. Included in this program is a list of things the VM does every day. This can include:

1. Check every display in the store to make sure it’s in good shape.

2. Dust all the displays and the display bases. (If your maintenance staff doesn’t do this or, doesn’t do it carefully enough.)

3. Change any display lights that burned out overnight. (Again, if the maintenance staff doesn’t take care of this.)

4. Refresh signage to reflect what’s current for that day.

5. Now – start working on new displays, windows and signage for new products.

6. Help with the focal areas in floor moves.

Visual merchandisers should not be solely responsible for floor moves but can be called upon to refresh displays, focal areas and aid in specialty merchandising for focal fixtures.

A good Visual Merchandising Training Program teaches the VM’s not just how to do the merchandising and displays for the store but also why they are done that way. When a person knows the reasoning behind each task, they can be intelligently and creatively flexible when something unexpected comes along - in an appropriate manner. Conversely, when a person knows exactly what he or she can do in an area or in a set of circumstances but no more, that person may have a difficult time adapting their limited knowledge to a new challenge.

Educated visual merchandisers can quickly adapt to changes and their knowledge can keep a stores image fresh and attractive within the parameters of the brand.

Some options for a good training program:

1. Videos with each section being no longer than 20 minutes.
2. A VM Standards manual in print format
3. Workshop/seminar and hands-on training by a supervisor. This can include VM’s from other stores if you have more than one store in the group.

Whichever training you choose, it’s vital that you choose one and do it! Learn from the first training sessions and they should evolve as fluidly as your brand and image do over time.

Maintenance

Much effort goes into the opening of a store but the ongoing maintenance is often less than stellar. While every store needs to be neat and clean, a smaller specialty shop must look fresh every day at all times. For many years a big trend in store design has been to paint the walls refrigerator white. This looks bright, clean and inviting in the first 6 months. Then, it gets scratched, yellowed, chipped and stained thereby looking old, beat-up and cheap. This immediately devalues the perceived quality of the merchandise. The Visual Merchandising staff may not paint the walls but they need to be empowered to petition to have it done in a timely basis.

Chipped fixtures and mannequins equally degrade the perceived value of the goods for sale. Part of the initial training is learning how to work with mannequins to keep them from chipping and breaking. The cleaning staff must learn how not to bang and chip the fixtures with their floor cleaning machines and the sales staff needs to be trained how to move fixtures so they don’t lose their integrity and fall apart.

The entire staff of a specialty store has to work together to maintain the assets of a store. It’s a team effort and this challenge is worthy of management’s time and commitment.

Consider a reward policy for excellent maintenance. Rewards don’t always have to be financially based. They can consist of alternative rewards such as recognition, time off or a better parking space (if appropriate) for a fixed period of time.



Inspiring Employees to Consistently Create Great Displays

There is a combination pharmacy/gift shop in a small town in central Oregon in USA called Sisters Drug & Gift Shop. It is a very large store for a small town and it carries a wide variety of gifts, decorative accessories and housewares. Each person who works on the selling floor is responsible for his or her specific area. They have competitions each month to see whose display sells more. The competition is fierce – and friendly. Once the monthly figures are posted, the employee who has sold the most through her/his display is honored. Not only do they learn from each other’s creativity, they are constantly inspired to come up with new, interesting ways to merchandise and display the goods.

It’s a thought….

Challenges are just opportunities to discover creative solutions. If you hire intelligently, train your staff well, maintain the store on a daily basis and inspire everyone with positive reinforcement, challenges translate into success.

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Article Tags: Maintenance, Staffing, Training, Visual Merchandising



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