I organize retail experience days for store staff. Here are Oliver’s reflections on his experience:
We started the day off right with a lovely coffee and breakfast to prepare for the learning filled day ahead! Although the retail shops are a different environment to the showrooms which we work in, it was a well thought out location and a very good viewing point for an in depth insight to the world of visual merchandising.
With each retailer we went to Michelle took us through each step from start to finish, walking through the door to exiting, explaining the different focus points and selling areas for these. One of the main things picked up from all the shops as a collective is the use of colour blocking, which Michelle has helped me understand the ways in which that works and how to use this to attract different target audiences and the ways in which it does not work and can drive away the customer and reduce the customer journey. Customer journey is another key focus point which was picked out, and it was very good to learn how to create different paths through the store to break it up and encourage customers to spend more time in store and engage with the stock on display. These were used together in a way that the colour was used to bring you in and separate the parts of the shop, and the customer journey was used to bring you around these colours and explore the story they held for the store.
Something I noticed that was very popular all around and something I feel made a big difference and could be used internally, is the use of plants. Most stores had a big plant at the entrance of the shop as a statement piece to compliment the window or front facing display that was there. With more smaller plants being used in various places to go with displays and create stories within these displays to draw interest and open the feeling of it being a natural and friendly experience. Having plants in the stores created a positive feel and was a very significant touch to having an engagement to the customer and the world around.
Michelle explained every small detail from each store from the use of different flooring and lighting through to stock placement and store layout. She gave a very detailed understanding of how to take the points which we noticed and spoke about and apply these to our motorrad showrooms, and how the different points can be used to strengthen different areas of the showroom to make them appeal to the customer audience that they hold. A main area spoken about was the heritage part of our showrooms and the way in which we can use the industrial feel and look from these stores to compliment the heritage bikes we have, and the accessories and stock displayed with this. It was very good to understand the ways in which it is best to utilise each thing and being shown how to use each feature to compliment the other and apply this internally.
This experience day has thoroughly helped me to understand the importance and benefits of visual merchandising and how to do it correctly. Michelle’s knowledge made it easier to understand the reasoning behind each thing instead of just a passing on of information which to me is a key benefit as to apply knew learning points it is always good to understand the reason behind it to better the outcome from it. Along with being open to discussion and hearing our ideas and stepping into our shoes and seeing the different stores from our perspectives and understanding why we would also do things a certain way and catering the experience to the pointers we needed and development areas. All in all it was a brilliant day, and I fell much more prepared to look after the showroom than before and would recommend this to anybody looking to further their skills.
Oliver S
Motorrad Ecommerce and Showroom assistant,
Vines of Guildford BMW
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