While the visual merchandisers’ tool kit has expanded considerably in recent decades, the fundamental motivation of increasing sales through the artful presentation of products remains the same.
Retailers rely on visual merchandising to generate shopper traffic and create interesting and enjoyable store environments to promote purchase behavior. Presenting merchandise in a compelling manner through a wide range of visual merchandising techniques allows retailers to achieve a wide range of benefits such as establishing perceptions relating to price and merchandise quality, generating trial usage and encouraging shoppers to extend their time in the store.
Visual merchandising has existed since early shopkeepers moved beyond displaying products in a strictly utilitarian fashion on shelves and tables to add a bit of flair to the presentation to heighten the appeal of merchandise. The exact moment in time when this concept emerged is impossible to pinpoint, but generally speaking visual merchandising as it is practised today gained traction at the dawn of the department store era in the early to mid-1800s.
That is when department store operators recognized that one of their key operational challenges was getting shoppers to come in off the busy streets in downtown areas where their stores were typically located. The solution for many was to creating interesting window displays that showcased products in such a way as to inspire and delight passersby to encourage them to come inside the store.
The concept of attractively presenting merchandise extended to inside the store as well. Soon, retailers were relying on visual merchandising to promote sales of new fashions, establish seasonal selling periods, showcase values on key items and help identify key departments.
As understanding of the powerful effects of visual merchandising grew, retailers began using increasingly elaborate fixtures constructed of wood, glass and metals with various finishes to showcase products. In addition, temporary displays made of corrugated material with elaborate graphics grew increasingly common and the lighting of displays contributed mightily to the effectiveness of visual merchandising.
Today, visual merchandising is an integral component of store design and has grown to encompass other sensory elements such as sound, smell, taste and touch, as well as interactivity. Some retailers also took the concept of visual merchandising to extreme limits with over-the-top store displays that gave rise to the term, “retailtainment.”
Contribution to Retail History
The development of visual merchandising practices and their application changed the look of the sales floor and brought a sense of theatre to retail. Through visual merchandising, retailers made shopping fun and brought a sense of discovery to their stores. Retailers found visual merchandising tactics to be equally effective at driving sales of price sensitive of commodity categories and transforming the most discretionary of products into must have items.