Internal Merchandising Strategy

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Horatio Quinn
5 years ago
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1 Internal Merchandising Strategy

2 What does Paco know? Author of Why We Buy The Call of the Mall President, Envirosell Watched thousands of people in retail environments.

3 And, now a word from Paco Banks do a horrendous job with signs and other in-branch media. Almost none of it is positioned in a strategic fashion it s just nailed up or dumped wherever there s space with no thought given to what customers will be doing or thinking about when they come upon the sign or brochure rack.

4 Greet Them At The Door There s only one time when anyone pauses to study what s written there on the door: when the store is closed.

5 The Transition Zone When I talk to clients they invariably point to our findings on the transition zone as among our most meaningful, useful work. Allowing some space between the entrance of a store and a product gives it more time in the shopper s eye as she approaches it. It builds a little visual anticipation.

6 Leave me alone! Shoppers for the most part ignore flyers which make the store s intelligent marketing plan much less effective than it should be. It s futile to try to interfere with a shoppers s natural task-oriented behavior. If a bank customer is intent on filling out a deposit slip, she is in no frame of mind to read a brochure about vacation loans. Instore media needs to be placed where shoppers naturally pause in their travels if it s to have a fighting chance.

7 I m on a mission. Again, when you re filling out a deposit slip or endorsing checks, you re concentrating too hard to think about anything else. And once you ve filled out the paperwork, you race to get in line.

8 Let s take it slow. You have to deliver the information the way people absorb it, a bit at a time, a layer at a time, and in the proper sequence. If you don t get their attention first, nothing that follows will register. If you tell too much too soon, you ll overload them and they ll give up. If you confuse them, they ll ignore the message altogether.

They Hate to Wait It s a good idea to position signs for shoppers standing in line to pay, but it s a bad idea if those signs promote merchandise that s kept in

Fourteen percent of customers read those banners, our researchers found, for an average of 5.4 seconds each. Which is pretty good in the sign world.

9 They Hate to Wait It s a good idea to position signs for shoppers standing in line to pay, but it s a bad idea if those signs promote merchandise that s kept in the rear of the store. In one of the prototype (post office) stores we studied, hanging behind the cashiers were large banners promoting various services. Fourteen percent of customers read those banners, our researchers found, for an average of 5.4 seconds each. Which is pretty good in the sign world. And not unexpected, because when you re in line at the post office, what else is there to do? The area behind or to the side of the cashiers is almost always the hottest signage real estate

10 Wait! We have something to say. Quite simply, a short wait enhances the entire shopping experience and a long one poisons it. But, it s possible to bend waiting time to alter how shoppers perceive it. When people wait about a minute and a half, their sense of how much time elapsed is fairly accurate. Anything over 90 seconds or so, and their sense of time distorts. To bend time: Interaction, human or otherwise: Time a shopper spends waiting after an employee has initiated contact goes faster than time spent waiting before that interaction takes place. Companionship: The wait seems shorter if you ve got someone to talk to. Recognize lone shoppers are the ones who need employee contact the most. Diversion: Merchandising materials, signage, shoppable racks should be positioned for the second or third person in line. Another popular form of shopper diversion is, believe it or not, signage. Customers perceive waiting in time as shorter if there are signs to read. Smart retailers view waiting time as a kind of intangible asset it s one of the few opportunities when you have your customers standing in one spot, facing in one direction, with nothing much else to do.

11 A Vast Right-Handed World Because American shoppers automatically move to the right, the front right of any store is its prime real estate. That s the one to take advantage of how people move.

12 A Vast Right-Handed World All shoppers reach right, most of them being righthanded.so, if your store wishes to place something into the hand of a shopper; it should be displayed just slightly to the right of where he or she will be standing.

13 Guilty? Five minutes from my office is a branch of Chase Manhattan Bank where you can find this merchandising innovation: a round table covered by the cheapest blue plastic table cloth you ve ever seen, atop which were tossed some brochures for car loans and mortgages, joined by a TV monitor, once intended perhaps for showing in-branch videos but now unused and completely covered by a blanket of dust.

Change it up. If the average customer comes every two weeks, then your window displays need to be changed that often, so they ll always seem fresh and interesting.

14 Change it up. If the average customer comes every two weeks, then your window displays need to be changed that often, so they ll always seem fresh and interesting. Here s another example of how design and merchandising must work hand in hand. If windows are made so they are easy for employees to get into the display will be changed more often than it it s a pain in the neck.

15 I can t read that. I still can t read that. I said, I can t read that. With age, three main ocular events occur meaning you can no longer focus on small type, (it) changes how you perceive color, and the world looks dimmer than it once did. Readers want bigger text. Readers want 12 points or larger. By 2025, anything smaller than 13-point type will be a form of commercial suicide. The yellowing of the aging cornea means that certain subtle gradations of color will become invisible to a large part of the population. We re going to have to see a lot more black, white and red and a lot less of any other hue. All print will have to be bold and high-contrast dark colors on white (or light) backgrounds.

16 Hey KIDS! If a store is somehow unwelcoming to children, parent-shoppers will get the message and stay away. That children can be counted on to be enthusiastic consumers (or co-consumers) as long as their needs have been considered. If the parent s sustained close attention is required (by say, a car salesman or bank loan officer) then someone must first find a way to divert the attention of a restless, bored child. We did a study for Wells Fargo a few years ago showing that 15 percent of all those entering its branches are under seven years old. What s your most effective selling tool? we asked a loan officer there. She reached in her desk and pulled out a lollipop. She said it could usually be counted on to buy her two minutes of uninterrupted face time with a parent, all she needed.

17 What did you say? The sales people would load shoppers down with literature but fail to give them folders. There were plenty of brochure racks but no brochures, which is a problem. Empty literature racks, give shoppers the (correct) impression that details don t get taken care of in this place of business. One sided posters were taped to the exterior and interior windows, meaning that shoppers frequently found themselves staring at blank white rectangles.

18 For Example This branch has a flyer facing the outside of the door, but the inside is empty. You get the picture.

19 Banker s Hours vs. Consumer Hours What do banks do wrong? Name another store open only from 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday. Yet banks still think of branches as unwanted costs rather than opportunities to meet customers face-toface and finds ways income generating ways to serve them.

20 Meet your goals. Move your desk. In a bank, the desk arrangement tells a great deal about the relationship between you two. He or she is on one side of the desk, you re on the other, and the computer monitor screen, which displays all the most intimate facts of your financial life, faces toward the banker and away from you. We learned an important lesson from HFC Bank in Great Britain: The closing rate of loans goes up, and the time required to close them goes down, when banks and customers sit next to each other rather than face-to-face over a broad expanse of desktop or table.

21 Conestoga Merchandising Kiosk Poster Holder Brochure holder Kiosk

22 Take the next step: Contact L&H Signs for a FREE assessment of your bank merchandising sales@lhsigns.com

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