Visual Merchandising: How to Display Retail Merchandise Effectively

At Bench Solution we want to enhance not only your garage and residence, but also your commercial space! Our IdealWall product is a great system for retail displays; here we discuss how to build an effective display and how IdealWall can help!
Display Shelves and Lay-out
Always sketch out a preliminary “map” of your display – this is often the difference between a well-planned, well-arranged display that guides the eye in an effective way, and a haphazard mess that loses the viewer and the business.
Determine what your focal point will be – this is the area that the eye is first drawn to. It could be a large product, a splash of color, a moving object. Or it could be a product that is set somewhat apart from the rest of the display. It usually is located towards the center at eye level, but there is room for interpretation. Whatever it is, make sure your focal point is effective and actively draws the eye.
From there, map out the rest of the display and think about how the eye will move through it. Do you have a series of products that you would like consumers to view in a specific order? Think about how you want to “guide” the viewer, remembering that people typically work left to right and will usually not look too much higher or too much lower than eye level.
Generally, displays should be “heavy” on the bottom and “light” on top, meaning that large objects should be placed farther down while smaller objects go farther up. The same can be said of display shelves – large, protruding shelves should go below smaller shelves that don’t stick out as far. As a final note, remember to place any merchandise you want consumers to get close to and/or touch at an accessible level.
Color and Lighting
There is no right or wrong color to use in retail displays, but be sure to pick a coherent theme. Viewers will be jarred and turned off by colors that don’t seem to match or don’t work well together. Also, an imbalanced color theme will not benefit your merchandise – viewers will be drawn to a spot of over-concentrated color more than the products on display. Be sure your color theme is consistent throughout.
Lighting can make or break a display – consumers will not strain to see something that is too dark to see, and lighting can go a long way in “inviting” someone to look in the first place! Many commercial spaces are outfitted with fluorescent overhead lighting, which alone creates glare, heavy shadowing, and leads to eye fatigue. In addition to the overhead lighting, position warm ambient lighting around your display, making sure that it adequately illuminates the eye level area. Not only will this enable your viewers to see your merchandise better, but the warmth of ambient lighting is more inviting than cold commercial glare.
Window Displays
Basically, all the same principles we’ve discussed apply to window displays, just be sure to make them bigger, bolder, and more simple than your other in-store displays. Window displays are like “hooks”; they should catch consumers and draw them in, not bore them with a comprehensive overview of your products!
A note on lighting window displays: DO NOT use overhead lighting – especially fluorescent overhead lighting – for your window displays. It conflicts too much with the outside lighting and makes your display very difficult to see from the outside. Instead, use the outside lighting in combination with ambient lighting to make your display visible and invite passers-by with a warm eye-catching glow.
Retail Display Wall (IdealWall)

Retail displays are meant to present merchandise in a fresh way, so be sure that the displays themselves always stay fresh! Re-arrange, incorporate new or different merchandise, try out different moods and themes, switch up the shelving and lay-out, etc. The importance of changing your retail displays cannot be under-estimated – an ever-changing presentation keeps consumers looking and curious!
Yet many storeowners balk at the idea of changing their displays – the labor of such an undertaking can turn it from a fun, creative exercise into an exhausting chore. Don’t let this happen to you – invest in a versatile system like IdealWall for your retail displays. With IdealWall, you can go from displaying stuffed animals in baskets to hanging bikes on brackets to displaying figurines on shelves in the blink of an eye. By cutting down on the labor and complexity of changing a space, IdealWall keeps the creative, artistic energies flowing – a necessity for creating effective, engaging displays!
Click here more information about our unique uses for IdealWall or click here for product information.