Every piece of advice that is to be found about visually improving the layout of your store is meant to bring into discussion some strategies that can effectively be used to provide one of the best experiences of shopping ever and to improve the aesthetic image of your store. The tips are very important but far more important are the simple things that can be done by everyone, no matter the tactics in use and no matter the budget.

As a store owner or interior designer, you need to be aware of the fact that a display once settled, it requires care to maintain it in its initial form. We’re dealing here with some simple precautions you need to consider after you decided upon the vision of your brand, more exactly on how to make some changes in your store without actually having to close the door for customers and how to make sure your displays looks and “functions” properly.

The maintenance of a store refers to every procedure we undergo in order to provide a normal flux of sales, merchandise, or to optimize or upgrade the entire process of shopping for customers and staff also. Normally it means “closing the doors” for customers. We need to be careful about the way in which we take care of the merchandise, how and when we change collection, when should we make supplies. If we take all these things into account, we can prevent closing our store for a day or two at a certain period of time (that means a day with no sales).

Temporarily closing the store would be necessary only under really serious circumstance (repairs, important upgrades, redecorate); otherwise you can make sure you won’t need that if you follow some simple rules, according to your type of store. These can be achieved by setting a strategic plan in which we assign different tasks to our staff and avoid doing some things twice or over schedule just because we were a bit careless in our everyday job in the store.

Window Display Maintenance Do’s and Don’t’s

Almost the same principles can be applied for window displays, for they work as an autonomous assembly in way. The way in which you handle the entire process of crafting the display and after that, the way in which you maintain it, can influence what happens inside, the merchandise and the shopping experience, and as a consequence – the sales.

Some of the most frequent mistakes in shop fitting are connected with some careless attitudes towards the whole thing. We’ve listed below some of them:

#1. Empty / forgotten mannequins, mannequins used for inappropriate items of clothing: you may think it is unimportant, but people might feel unsafe to enter such stores because they lack confidence. If they see that you neglect certain things, they will definitely assume that what’s inside is even worse and are ready to target everything at the first impression. Even a glimpse can cast an uncomfortable feeling about everything: store, brand, products. A bad impression can damage the attitude towards products, as being perceived according to what you already provided: carelessness.

#2. Inappropriate use of space, a poor connection between the products and the displays that are meant to define them: a crowded window display might suggest at least two negative situations: you cannot decide what defines your offer or you simply neglect the window displays, considering them unimportant.

When you create a temporary display, make sure you don’t spoil the image you’ve worked on so much by inserting items from new or old collections. Try to maintain the entire display as appropriate as possible.

#3, A lack of synchronization between the customers’ expectations / needs and the actual products: this is an issue that troubles many retailers due to the fact that customers are very diverse and inconstant. Generally, products that come in different sizes, such as clothing and footwear, can create some problems when it comes to displaying all sizes. When the products enter the store first, they are generally grouped equally on sizes. Once the product is sold, some sizes keep staying on the shelves / hangers.

To avoid this, make sure you always keep an eye on sales and supply the actual need, and not the potential one. Of course, this is something that you will come to understand after you gain some experience when you’ll definitely know what your target is.

The Best Time To Change Your Display

When trying to change the display, make sure that you either have a new collection (something else to show), or you simply want to create a thematic display. We recommend you initiate the entire changes either in the morning or when the program is almost over, and this only if you don’t want to close the entire store for this purpose. Generally, people don’t feel very uncomfortable about the changes that evolve in front of their eyes, but for a safer process you may consider cover the windows with some paper and hide somehow the area that is under change.