Black Friday – 8 Ways To Arrange Your Store When It Is Crowded With Merchandise

The first thought that comes to every American after Thanksgiving is the nationally recognized holiday, which is known as Black Friday. On this day, Americans wake up well before the time and head to malls for the year’s best deals for Christmas gifts.

For years, this has been a tradition for most people to form lines outside stores and shopping centers to ensure that they can get everything they want at the lowest prices. Last year, 2018, Thanksgiving day brought in $3.7 billion in sales, and Black Friday brought $6.7 billion in online sales, according to Adobe Data Analytics.

Black Friday is a profitable time for consumers as well as retailers. But it can be hectic for retail store owners to handle a large number of requests from customers, assist them, and be aware of any trouble during rush.

Many of the retail businesses start preparing for it well in advance to tackle the challenges. With fierce competition in the retail industry, retailers need to stand out in the mob and offer flashing deals and discounts.

On Black Friday, when people are on the roads to buy things with so many options in the market, they are going to choose the store where they can find the stuff easily from the merchandise displayed in the store.

Retailers need to prepare their store according to the occasion and understanding the significance of merchandise display in the store. Let’s check out ways in which you can arrange your retail store when it is crowded with people and merchandise.

1. Use the Right Floor Plan According to The Store

While planning the arrangement of your store, it is good to be creative, insightful and organized as it plays a critical role in managing the store traffic flow. The floor plan should be according to the size and shape of the store.

There are several layouts to choose from for your retail store, which can be a straight, loop, and angular floor plan. Choosing an appropriate floor plan ensures the proper utilization of both floor and wall space. These layouts should be implemented before the Black Friday so that it is easy to navigate the products for customers as well as the store owners.

2. Display Your Best Products At the Front of The Store

First impressions are crucial, so the entrance of your retail store should be warm and welcoming. It is important to display your best merchandise and deals on the front window of the store to drive in-store traffic, but it should not be cluttered with too many products.

The idea of making the store entrance welcoming is to give your customers an idea about your store and highlight the merchandise which are new and in trend. You can use elements of effective visual merchandising like balance, size of objects, color, and focal point to display products in the front.

3. Use Cross-merchandising To Be Effective

Cross-merchandising is the retail practice of placing related products together in such a way that customers can get the entire items in one place only. This can be applied to almost every store, such as grouping outfits as a whole on a mannequin or putting the grocery items needed for one meal in a box.

Shoppers might have come to your store for buying a single thing, but on seeing the perfectly matched items, there is a possibility that they purchase additional products. It is a great way to increase sales, as consumers do not have to roam in every corner of the store to find matching items.

4. Avoid Placing Merchandise in the “Decompression Zone”

The decompression zone in the retail store is the space near the entrance. It is called the decompression zone as shoppers tend to miss the merchandising displays just inside your front door. You should avoid putting a lot of products in this zone, as shoppers are trying to adjust to the transition of the new environment. Consequently, they can miss the items in this area.

Also, while designing the store layout, you should avoid placing signs and branding in the decompression zone to give your customers a chance to familiarize themselves with new visual and audio of the surroundings. Your decompression zone should be inviting and contrasting to the environment outside.

5. Design A Power Wall

The power wall in retail is a visually appealing, large display of products intended to attract the customers. Just after passing the decompression zone, your power wall can be on the right or left side with your best products and offers displayed.

You should not house this wall with basic products as this would be the first exciting thing customers see after entering the store. Your store can have more than one power wall, which you can use to display hot-selling products, high-profit items, or theme decorations in the festive season.

6. Add Breaks or Speed Bumps

In retail, speed bumps work the same as they work on roads- slow you down. You can place the fixtures like small tables, rotating racks, and navigation screens in the stores to give your customers a break from monotonous displays or big aisles. These speed bumps get them engaged to view more of store items.

These speed bumps grab the attention of customers where you can place the featured items, seasonal items, tell the product stories, or customer experiences at your retail store.

7. Use Signs Wisely

Signage inside, as well as outside stores, plays a crucial role in a retail business in getting noticed and attracting customers. The signs in the store not only attract customer’s attention but also helps in avoiding overstimulation and confusion.

You should set up the signs in the retail store to educate people about products, attract shoppers to checkout your promotions or new arrivals. Outdoor signage is equally crucial as it only gets the customers inside the door. Hence, they should be simple, specific, and appealing.

8. Use Checkout Counter to Display Low Priced Items

Shoppers are likely to make an additional purchase without thinking while checking out, whenever they see inexpensive products on the counter. You should not stock up the area around the checkout counter but only displaying a few items and leaving enough space for comfortable checkout.

Having items placed at the checkout counter takes only a little space in the store but can account for good annual sales. These things act like the addons to the shopping cart to the customers but profitable to the retailers.

To Wrap It Up

As Black Friday is approaching, it can be a massive success for a business. But at the same time, it can be stressful for retailers to manage and run the business. So, it is best to have your retail store versed with better inventory management and fast processing Point-of-Sale solution like QuickBooks POS Online.

If the retailers adopt the above-mentioned points, it can help to organize their merchandise better. Moreover, the customers find it easy to stroll through the store to reach the products they are looking for.

If you think of any more ideas to add in this, leave us with a comment.