SEEING MILAN THROUGH WINDOWS DISPLAYS

VISUAL MERCHANDISING

 INTERNAL DESIGN AND WINDOWS DESIGN ARE ALSO ECONOMIC ISSUES

 Distributive organisations have been affronting a problem in new strategies of company marketing: product which has to let it see and sell by itself. There is a particular discipline, called Visual Merchandising, which regulates this problem; this is an economical issues which crosses marketing and sociology. I am really fascinated by it also because I’m doing an economic university, so I would like to spend this post considering this new aspect.

Visual Merchandising let products “talk” to customers in an interesting and attracting way. It developes systematically all the opportunities offered by visive sell. It inglobes every kinds of sell-out points, so it has become an unforgettable professional part for all people want to sell things.

Visual Merchandising, required always more and well paid, is a true creator of desires: windows displays do not only attract public attention, let enjoy or feel particular feelings, but it must make the customer buy things.

Windows are essentially a three-dimensional advertising space for

The  store. It is usually the first point of communication with the

customer. Good window displays will enhance communication of

the product, brand and image. Equally the window can

communicate a viewpoint or trigger an emotional response, giving

the customer a reason to enter the store. Stores only have a few

seconds to get the customer’s attention: “theatrical windows or

windows with humour can be the most effective way of

transcending the barriers of both language and budget” (Paul

Smith, fashion designer).

This does not always have to be a costly

operation and effective windows are windows that show

imagination. Use of the simplest items can make for a dynamic

statement and aid in the sales of product.

In the last few years the sell out point has been considered by scientists of the discipline a strategic source which contain the “plus” that make the difference.

Visual merchandising regards also producing companies which are always more interesting in a visive optical, so in doing visual merchandising in the sell-out points where their product are.

The use of this technique in every company is purely strategic, because in guides the customer through obbly visual views and because it’s a distinctive element in competitive contests.

Visual Merchandising is at first a way of thinking about how to give a special value to the product, to family of products, to the product store. Visual art developed in America from 60’s and today has become an important point to increase the sell-out, using the product in the better way.

It’s a system of methods which contribute giving to the product an active role in the sell-out process, thanks to its presentation and to its contextualisation; the target is to optimise the inflows of money.

 Merchandising can be riassumed in a group of activities structured in five big areas:

Classification of products;

• Lay-out of the instruments: complete setting of the sell-out point, decision of the way of showing products, organisation of fluxes of customers;
• Lay-out of the spaces;
• Display: way of distributing products and families of products;
• Animation of the sell-out point.

So it’s necessary to decide how to show things in particular exhibiting places, what is more or less important, what to remove from the assortment, how to judge the impact of these decisions on the customer’s behave inside the shop. All these elements have an impact in the shop image, so on the store loyalty.
Visual Merchandising reflect the idea of the store as a “theatre of destre” which provokes the creation of an emotional effect on the consumers: the whole shop becomes a true window display.

The shop contributes to the process of selling-out through its capacity of communicating, letting people feel emotions, through an identifying style. The moment of consume is not only a moment of rational nature: it’s an istintive moment, in fact it’s important to see, touch, to feel the product. 

The sell-out point, acting above all through merchandising and through advertisements in-store, represents a way to communicate which is the nearest to the customer, the real point of contact between people and the store.

To distingue themselves from the mass and to have success,is foundamental to give the customer the opportunity to live new experiences, welcoming him in familiar and involving places, rational spaces which are able to attract their attention for their particular  personality.