Examples of general merchandising guidelines that may assist
you in developing a desirable “look” for your store include:
Merchandising walls:
- Utilize walls as well as floor fixtures
- Wall fixtures are useful for highlighting merchandise
- Merchandise wall fixtures small to large, left to right, top to bottom
- "Colorize" a wall grid across from left to right, then diagonally down and then left and right again
Merchandising floor fixtures:
- Keep fixtures straight and parallel to any area borders (like carpet border)
- Insure that floor fixtures have attractive, easily understood, attractive signage
- Insure fixture signage faces traffic pattern
- Insure fixture arm heights are consistent and symmetric
- Use a fixture with the proper holding capacity (density) for your store (low, medium, or high)
- Do not let goods on a fixture touch or drag on the floor
- Insure your store merchandising will permit an un-obstructed view of the sales floor for customer service help and security
- Insure at least 36 inches between all floor fixtures on all sides
- Rounders are often the best fixtures for clearance merchandise
- Utilize fixtures that are a consistent type and height to insure the sales floor is consistent
- Do not use rolling hanging racks on the sales floor
- Only utilize vendor-supplied fixtures if they do not disrupt the consistent look of your sales floor
- Dump bins for select small merchandise, used sparingly, can be a useful tool
- "Colorize" merchandise by varying colors from light to dark and sizes from small to large within each color
- "Colorize" rounders counter-clockwise
- "Colorize" rounders first then assort each color by size
- Never put more than two colors on an arm
- Insure color scheme of store is in balance
- Never mix stripes and paisley patterns
- Show individual items and complete outfits
- Hang pants at mid length
- Create merchandise grouping based upon the type of goods being sold
- Avoid mixing different items on an arm
- Keep different categories of merchandise on different rounders
- Shoes display pairs are best displayed close to eye level
- Display key margin items and featured items as close to eye-level as possible
- Insure all merchandise displayed is neat, steamed, folded, zipped, buttoned
- Face hangars the same way and separate (space them out) by 1 inch
- Do not mix hangar types
- Keep chrome fixture clean by dusting and wipe off finger prints carefully (try wax paper)
- Size collars are helpful if merchandise sizes are difficult to see on vendor tags
- Insure your price signage is accurate
- Take pictures of your well-merchandised sales floor to help associates understand the look you want to maintain
- Keep your sales floor full and your stock-rooms empty
