Photo courtesy of Nailed, Salt Lake City

Photo courtesy of Nailed, Salt Lake City

Retail is a service to your guests. Stop apologizing or making excuses for selling retail, says Patti Biro, the owner and founder of Patti Biro and Associates, a consulting firm specializing in planning and providing innovative continuing education in the spa and wellness industry. In fact, she says, recommending products should happen for every client every time.

Want to take a more subtle approach? Here are some display tips from Biro:

1. Educate and inform your clients about your retail products. Use shelf-talkers, product reviews, and samples of your retail products for clients to see, touch, smell, and experience.

2. Engage in some visual merchandising. Mixing it up by creating visually appealing and changing displays keeps items fresh. Anyone who has ever worked store retail knows that sometimes simply moving the location of an item will make it sell.

3. Keep to the right. Most people tend to turn to the right when they enter a store. Higher priced items should be placed on the right side. When guests walk into your retail area, which way do they logically turn? You may consider moving your retail items to accommodate this tendency.

4. Eye level is buy level. Less expensive products should be arranged below eye level. Reserve the prime real estate in your retail area for higher-priced products.

5. Less is more. The more expensive a product is the less of it you should have on display. If you have ever visited a higher-end purse, luggage, or eyewear store you will notice large areas of “white space” to display a single item. Our brains tell us this item is special, more desirable, and therefore worthy of the price.

For more information, go to www.pattibiro.com.

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