Displays can make or break the success of an in-person sales experience, especially when you are creating the display and leaving it in the hands of someone else as you do with a vendor booth. Truly, we could talk about displays all day and still have talking points left to discuss, but for today I want to talk about the most important things to remember for displays in a vendor booth.
Awareness
If I walk into the store where you vendor booth is located, will your space stand out to me? What is it about our display that will get my attention? Now make a note, I’m not saying that you want your booth to stand out so much that it doesn’t feel like it fits with the store surrounding it, rather, what is catching your eye and making me think that I need to see more?
Remember those oversized items we talked about? These are a great way to pull someone’s eye into your booth. If it is artwork then maybe it is hanging high on the wall in the back of your booth and pulling someone in to check out the details. Maybe you have a large collection of keychains displayed on an old chandelier in the center of your booth and the customer just has to get closer to see the details.
Maybe you’ve built a great sign with your logo that hangs from the ceiling in your space with baubles that hang down and catch the light so that someone walking around can’t miss it.
These are just a few ideas of how you can use eye-catching display elements to bring people into your space.
Also, consider the angles. Approach your space from every direction that a customer might and assess the appearance. For example, if you are using a shelving unit to display decor items, but it is possible for a customer to approach your booth from a direction behind that shelving unit, make sure you are using the back of the unit to display product as well.
Accessibility
Once you have the customer in your space, make sure that they can interact with your product easily. When you are putting a display together, always keep the customer in mind. Can they reach the items easily? Unless we are talking about high ticket items or oversized pieces that are hanging above eye level to pull people into your space, a customer should be able to access anything they want to purchase in your space without needing assistance. Once an item is in the hand of your customer the chances they will follow through on that purchase are significantly increased. If they cannot pick-up and hold your item they don’t form any kind of attachment to it and it is easy to forget to come back to it, or to get ready to check-out and decide they ‘don’t need it today’. So accessibility is one of the most important elements of a good display.
In this same vein it is important that every element of your display be as physically stable as possible. If a customer feels that by picking up an item they could disturb a precarious display, they are most likely to keep walking. So do everything you can to create stability.
When laying out the space, consider the customers comfort. If you have a children’s product, you want to make sure that a mom with a stroller can get in your space. Always, consider wheelchairs and walkers. Never display a product on the floor unless it is intended to be used that way; for multiple reasons. For starters, you never want to create a trip hazard, you want customers to move comfortably and unimpeded through your space. Also, product on the floor can send the message that it isn’t that valuable, and it’s below your eye-level so most customers will never notice it anyway!
Availability
We already discussed inventory levels, so you know how important volume is to healthy retail sales. When we are talking about displays though, availability means making sure a customer sees all of their options. It’s a proven fact that when someone sees a collection of similar but different items, their mind begins to decide which of those things is their favorite. Once a person chooses their favorite they’ve made an emotional attachment to that piece, they’ve also spent time making that decision and so they feel invested. This process makes a customer much more likely to purchase this product.
It is also important the price for each and every item in your space be easy to locate. I highly recommend pricing each individual item so that when a customer picks it up they know how much it is. Table signs are appropriate in some situations, but remember those can get moved easily, or if the product itself gets moved somehow and the sign isn’t nearby the customer won’t know the price. The majority of customers will simply sit the item back down if they can’t find a price. So making sure the price is clear and easy to locate is really important for sales.
