Five Tips for Making Your Retail Area a Holiday Hit

Visual merchandising is vital to the success of your retail sales all year, but it is critical during the holidays. Visual merchandising extends beyond simply facing products on the shelf or making sure you have enough products on hand — how and where you place retail is also of the utmost importance.

Here are five tips to maximize your holiday retails sales through visual merchandising.

1. Make your display the focal point

Display themed product bundles throughout your salon.

Have your holiday packages or holiday retail display prominently placed in the front window or reception area, and then several small displays throughout your salon. Place your important or popular products at heart-level, not eye-level, to attract the most consumer attention.

2. Use eye-catching props

Use tricks like placing an eye-catching prop in the window with your retail display. Find a totally unrelated item and put it in your display. It serves as a prop and grabs customers' attention. They ask, “Why is that there?” They are intrigued and it opens a dialogue to educate them about the products on display. 

3. Invest in good lighting

When it comes to salon lighting, the retail area can often be improperly lit or entirely overlooked. Consumers are drawn to products that are cleverly displayed and properly illuminated. Adding accent lights to your retail area can draw the customer's eye and makes the products seem more appealing. Avoid only backlighting a display; this creates a visually interesting display as a whole, but neglects to highlight the product face, leaving them in the shadows. If you want to use an eye-catching backlit display, pair it with direct lighting to adequately showcase your products. 

4. Create professional-looking signs

Take into consideration that products placed at "heart-level" (not eye-level) sell the best.

Add a few well-placed, well-worded signs at your displays and around your salon. Make sure they are brief and easy to read. If your customers are mostly seniors, make it easy on them by using larger fonts. Handwritten signs with markers are okay for a child's lemonade stand, but unless you have a knack for calligraphy or lettering, they tend to look amateurish and should be excluded from a display.

5. Make your products accessible

Many salons and spas place their retail on shelves behind the front desk — this is a big mistake. Retail needs to be where consumers can easily grab the products in order to check out their benefits, ingredients, scents, etc. They can’t be behind a counter or located in an area where consumers can’t handle and touch the products without having to ask an employee to see them.

Studies show retail sales dramatically decrease when products are behind a counter or in a glass case, rather than where buyers can just grab them easily. By making your products accessible to your consumers, a guest waiting for an appointment or waiting to be checked out is more likely to wander over and check out your product offering, increasing the purchase potential or opening a dialogue for a potential sales pitch.