The Killers New Video!
The video for The Killers new single ‘Here with Me’ is directed by Tim Burton and stars Winona Ryder as a creepy mannequin. Tim says he was inspired by a wax work figure of Winona that he had seen in Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks in Blackpool.
You can read more on Tim and the video by clicking here.
Along with highlighting its relatively low prices by putting the manufacturers’ RRP on their price tags, Penney’s strategy, spearheaded by their Chief Creative Officer Michael Fisher, is to ‘make Penney look like an upscale specialty store that still offers inexpensive wares, not a bazaar overflowing with ordinary merchandise and discount signs.’
Mannequins can make an impact on sales
The plan is to introduce 100 boutiques into their stores to help stem the sales slide. The boutiques will offer brand name fashion and home merchandise such as Levi’s and Martha Stewart. That’s where the mannequins come in.
“Customers don’t know what to buy. They love a mannequin that shows you how to put the outfit together,” said Fisher, 55, as he gave Reuters a tour of Penney’s Manhattan store last week.
“We find anything we put on a mannequin sells out.”
It may be Retail 101, but this shows how vital mannequins can be within your retail store. Customers can instantly see how an outfit is put together, and it encourages customer to purchase more than one item.
Using this same idea when merchandising your store will make it easier for your customers to mix and match themselves and this trick is something Penney’s is also looking to bring to their retail stores. Displaying tops and bottoms beside each other suggest the whole outfit to a customer.
This is a complete overhaul of the Penney shopping experience under CEO Ron Johnson. Ron joined the company from Apple Inc in late 2011 and he poached Fisher from Apple in February of this year.
If anyone knows how to create great store design and engage customers in a retail environment it’s these two. With annual sales of over $6,000 per square foot of retail space, Johnson & Fisher are widely admired.
This simple thinking could help our independent retailers. A simple change such as an additional few mannequins on the shop floor, or just shuffling around your merchandise to create outfit choices for your customers could really make an impact on your sales.
Source: Reuters – More mannequins, less clutter at heart of J.C. Penney plan
Our Guides aim to help your store make an impact on your customers.
Opening a shop can be hard. Many people who choose to open a retail store have a passion about what they plan to sell; clothing, outdoor pursuits, music etc. To help ease some of the pressure, we have looked at the essential products that our established companies buy from us regularly and started an ‘Opening a Shop‘ section on our website.
Within this section, you will find a page with quick links to your local Chamber of Commerce (where you can get great local help and advice for you and your business) and a list of all the essential shop fittings you will need for your store.
We have also added 2 Visual Merchandising guides to this section to help you attract customers into your store with your Window Display and effectively merchandise your products to them. These are important areas to look at and can easily get over looked when you first set up your shop with their being so many other bits and pieces to do.
The first guide looks at Visually Merchandising your window displays to attract and engage the potential customers walking past your store. In this guide you will find hints and tips, as well as images to illustrate the points and links to our pinterest page for ideas and inspiration.
The second guide looks at your store interior and how you can visually merchandise your store to entice your customers further inside and hopefully make that important purchase.
Have a read at all the guides here:
Visual Merchandising – Window Displays
Visual Merchandising – In store Merchandising
I hope you find these guides useful. Over the coming months we will be adding new help and advice pages that will hopefully make running yuor store that little bit easier. Check back soon!
Our New Gloss Seated Mannequin
We have added 2 new models to our Gloss range of Female Mannequins. The new pose is available in both Gloss Black and Gloss White and has the model in a seated position. It comes complete with a gloss white or black stool (matching the mannequin you have ordered). We think it’s a great, stylish model, and interest has been high so we hope you think the same! Check it out, along with the ‘how to’ video on our website now by clicking here.
4 Cardboard Packaging Boxes Available
After some great feedback from our customer we have now added more packaging products to our stock. Available in 4 sizes, our cardboard boxes are suitable for packing your products for delivery, or for use as storage boxes. Available in packs of 10, the boxes are delivered to you flat-packed. Check them out on our website now.
With the winter trading season fast approaching, we have put together a few pages on our website to help you prepare for Christmas. With the essentials laid out you can quickly find the products you need, as well as come across new ideas for your window and in store visual merchandising displays.
To make building your displays easier, I have put together out best-selling display products for the Christmas season. All you have to do is choose what you need and with extra festive inspiration
available on our Pinterest Board, you should be ready for the Christmas season in no time!
Source: flickr.com via equipashop on Pinterest
Source: 0.tqn.com via equipashop on Pinterest
I was reading a post on consumer behaviour and it posed an interesting read on why you should put your Christmas merchandise up early. Although most consumers always say, ‘they have the Christmas decorations up already. It’s only November!’, the post has a convincing argument as to why retailers really should have, or be putting up their Christmas decorations now.
The argument boils down to customers wallets. As Bob Phibbs says in his post, ‘Most people have a mental budget of what they will spend for the holidays; for decorations, for gifts for the family, for the teachers/coaches, for the office — the works.’
As soon as customer see something to purchase that will tick a box of this mental budget, they will spend less money in the traditional time for seasonal shopping.
Many independent retailers try to hold of on erecting their Christmas displays as long as possible so as to appease the consumers walking by, but they may be missing out to their competitors by doing so.
Bob puts this down to the Millennials. They are thrifty with their budgeting and know how to make their money go a long way. The best thing you can do now is to get your Christmas merchandise out now before your competitor gets to your customer first.
Click here to read Bobs complete blog post.
Do you agree with Bob? When do you put up your Christmas merchandise?
Product Videos are becoming more important in ecommerce
Over the past 2 months I have been working on making and adding product videos to our website.
As a result we now have 3 videos for 3 of our best selling products (clothes rail, tailors dummy mannequin and 4 way display rail) and have our own YouTube Channel now up and running. The videos give you an insight into what comes with the product, how it is constructed and how to use it. You can view the videos over on our YouTube Channel here. Have a watch and let me know what you think.
I will be adding more videos to our channel and also onto the revelvent pages on our website. You can keep an eye for them on our News Page. In the meantime, I thought I would have a look at how videos for your products are becoming more popular with retailers.
With the continual rise of broadband speeds across the developed world, more and more users are taking to the likes of YouTube and Vimeo to watch and share video content. TNS conducted a market insight study for Google and AOL last year and found that 75% of respondents reported watching more video online than they did last year, and over 50% said they intended to watch more in the next year (Source – Travel Index). With this, users expectations go up another level from what they expected when shopping online.
According to ECommercePartners.net, Ecommerce sales reached 43.2 billion in the 2nd quarter of 2012, which marks a 15% increase over last year’s ecommerce sales. With this growing market, staying up to date and on top of your game is key to staying ahead of your competitors.
When shopping online, customers are not only looking for an easy to buy solution, many will also research the product across various sites before making a purchase. They will look at reviews, ask their friends and peers on Social Networking sites for opinions and won’t make the buying decison until they are happy with the feedback. After all, they may not have seen your product in ‘real life’ yet and want to make sure that they are geting what they are looking for before buying.
Product videos can help bring your product to life on the screen. Yes, the customer can’t physically touch it but they can get a complete sense of what the product looks like, how it performs, how it is operated or constructed and how it interacts with another person. This can increase your conversion rates, with some estimating an improvement of 64-85% in your conversion rate after adding a good, insightful product video to your product. (Source – Kissmetrics.com)
Videos are also appearing on the first page of Google’s search rankings. Try typing in the name of a product, say super soaker, and you will find at least one video (when i tried it I got 2) be it a review on the product or a promtional video on it.
Video is only going to get more popular online, and soon every customer will expected some sort of video content on your website. You can start making yuors today, even using your phones camera!
Speak Soon,
Our New Showroom is well underway and there is plenty of change! The shop floor has almost been cleared, all our shop systems are now showcasing on all the walls, our ALD Fit Out Team have designed and manufactured new … Continue reading
After selling out within a few weeks of newly arriving into our product portfolio, we can now welcome back into stock our Female White Gloss Hand Display.
From our ever popular plastic mannequin range, these displays a hit with you guys, more so then we expected! Now they are back in stock I thought I would have a look at some great retail displays that have used hands as their main themes.
Dior Hand Window Display. Picture taken from Retail design blog – http://retaildesignblog.net
Dior used silhouettes of hands for their window displays last year. A fantastic idea that drew the eye to the product they were ‘holding’. The products were actually held aloft by clear string!
Dior Hand Window Display – Picture taken from Retail Design Blog – http://retaildesignblog.net
Hands can be used in various ways to draw attention to products. Everyone can associate a feeling or texture with touch and so displays can really engage people as everyone can relate to the sensation they think the display hand may be feeling. The image below is a simple idea that has been used in a bar on Boston
.
Hanging Hand with Bauble
Found on http://indulgeinspireimbibe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sunday-brunch-at-gallows.html
Below are a collection of images I have come across that make great use of hands in their displays. Enjoy!
Production Line of Hands
found via http://www.orvietoprods.com/
Halloween Idea
Found Via Pinterest & somethingcreatedeveryday.blogspot.com
Using Hand as a Prop
Found Via Pinterest – fab.com
Jewellery Display Idea
found via Pinterest – industryofone.com
jewellery Display Stand Idea
Found via Pinterest – urbanoutfitters.com
Adidas Pop Up Shop. Source: ninjamarketing.it via equipashop on Pinterest
They have been going on for a number of years now, but pop up shops have really come to life in this recession period. Their spontaneous nature and the attraction and excitement from that can make them a real success and give your brand some great exposure.
With Trendwatching.com has focused their August Trends around ‘Newism’, where consumers are lusting after ‘new’ products and experiences. They note how people’s desire to post interesting ‘Status Stories’ is ‘fuelling consumers’ never-ending lust for new experiences, especially acute in a world where so much of identity is expressed online.’
The Social-lite consumer wants to build their own brand online via their social networks and as a result want to be the first to know, and have their fingers on the pulse for new experiences. They will share, review, recommend and actively broadcast products and services to their friends and wider audiences.
Pop up shops can tap into this experience hunting consumer and can provide them with the ‘new’ they are continualy looking for.
Planning
The main areas to think about before starting your pop up shop are;
What are you going to sell – Will you use it to sell of remaining stock to make way for new items or are you launching a new range or testing out a new idea?
What is the concept and design of the store going to be – Will it be a rigid extension of your existing brand, or will you let it be flexible around it.
Find a concept from what you are selling and stick to you. Remeber to make your experience a one-off so be creative to attract attention and create a buzz. Play around with customising your clothes rails and mannequins. Importantly, have a budget and stick to it. After all, you want the shop to generate sales and additional income.
Check out our Pinterest Boards on Pop Up Shops & Visual Merchaniding for ideas & inspiration. You can view all our boards here.
Source: housetweaking.com via equipashop on Pinterest
Plan your Stock
Are you going to be there for long? Pop up shops can be there for a few days or a few months. Know your timeline and plan your inventory around that. Will you hold alot of stock there, or bring stock daily as and when you need it.
Choosing your location
Pop up shops usually open in vacant retail units that are between leases or completely vacant. Make sure the space meets all your needs, e.g. if you intend to sell chilled foods, does it have a refrigerator. The location is also critical to what you plan to do with your shop. Are you wanting to increase footfall, or are you wanting to catch a different area or target market? Choosing high footfall areas will increase awareness, or a side street unit will make for a more intimate, ‘secret’ experience.
Spreading the word
Social media can work wonders for pop up shops. Start generating the hype a few weeks before you open to get the anticipation building and get friends to tell their work colleagues etc. Some flyers and posters around town are also a great and fairly inexpensive way to get the word out and about. Facebook events and twitter accounts will help get the word out over the social networks.
Check it our Pop Up Shop Pinterest board for more ideas and inspiration!
Till Next Time!
Sources:
Trendwatching.com Pop Up Retail
Trenadwatching.com ‘Newism’ Briefing
The Mercedes-Benz Berlin Fashion Week SS13 took place a few weeks ago and Fridja Steamers were the proud providers of the garment care for the event. It was a pretty big deal as Ben, Fridja’s Director, summarised. ‘So imagine you have make up and hair, sponsored by Maybelline and L’Oréal, you also had the garment care, done by us!’
The task was a big task for the Fridja Steamers. With 3 backstage areas for garment care, a new designer (of which there was over 100!) was arriving every 20 minutes and in general they needed everything they had made steamed.
The team also provided the garment care for the ‘Studio’ space where installations were put on. Ben tells us a bit more about their involvement in this side of the fashion show and what the studio space was. “We’d sort out their garms and then they’d do something interesting in the studio space. It was really cool as it took the clothes off a standard catwalk, put it in a interactive space and in some cases almost combined it with theatre.”
The Mercedes-Benz Berlin Fashion Week SS13 was a real success for the Fridja steamers and the team.
To summarise the event Ben said, “It was an incredible experience for us, and it seemed the designers really appreciated the machines we brought. Berlin is a bit of a magical place and I’m so glad it was the first (of hopefully many) international fashion weeks we provide the garment care for!”
We have some pictures below that Ben and the team took behind the scenes and on the catwalk.
Equipashop.com 
