Thanks for following this aspect of my services as a retail consultant, This is the third installment of the business makeover I conducted over the past two months in New York. You can read part one here to understand the business and read part two here to learn about the cleanup.
We’d cleaned, lightened and fixed up the physical store and removed the old merchandise. Now we had to renew all the existing merchandise.
We had to transform the appearance of the private-label jams, spreads, relishes and jellies, and honeys into something special. We cut 5” squares of gingham fabric and affixed them to the jars with black rubber bands. The colors of the gingham squares color-coded each product’s category.
The heavy earthenware plates and mugs, emblazoned with local city names that had previously been hidden, were cleaned, regrouped by city and visually merchandised around the store.
Next, we had to buy new merchandise that would stand out, would not be shoppable at Wal-Mart or other retailers to our south and would definitely appeal to our weekender customers from New York City.
The strategy, if you remember, was to concentrate on the fact that we provided fresh produce from the farm, fresh baked goods from the oven, fresh nursery stock and flowers and unique accessories that told a story. Continue reading Business Makeover: Selecting Better Merchandise and Visual Merchandising the Store »
