Ebay’s “Shoppable Windows”

If you are in the New York City area on June 8th thru July 7th, then go by one of these four locations to view Ebay’s interactive windows:

• 175 Orchard Street
• 154 Spring Street
• 7 w. 18th Street
• 30 Gansevoort Street

Ebay will be covering up empty storefront windows with “shoppable windows”.  The interactive windows will allow shoppers to purchase items from Kate Spade’s Saturday collection.  You will order the items on the big screen and have them delivered to you within the hour. The customer pays the delivery person with a Pay-pal credit card reader.

This is one way to connect your brick and mortar store with the digital world!  I’ve always told students that you should treat your windows as another sales tools.  Ebay now proves it!

Read the full story here.

 

 

Someday My Prints Will Come

Former student Chelsea W. is doing amazing work at Bloomingdale’s.  I now take a special interest and make it a point to pass the mall windows every time I go to the mall, just because I know the young lady who does them!

Thanks for sending this in and please continue to do so!

(love the lips on the faceless mannies and frogs, cute ideas like this are Chelsea’s trademarks)

The Field Trip

As a class we recently went on a field trip to the Westfield Mall located right next door to our campus.  Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom are the anchor stores and various retail brands are throughout the mall.  The students were given a set of questions to answer, based on their findings at the mall.  It was kind of a scavenger hunt!  I thought this would be a fun way to get out of the classroom for a day and see actual visual techniques “in action”.  Below are some of their findings:

1. Choose one window you believe to be the most effective.  Explain why.

The Louis Vuitton display outside of the mall entrance of Bloomingdale’s. Its simply eye-catching, and aptly illustrates that an LV bag is the cherry on top of life’s sweetest dessert. -Cindy L.

2.  Choose one window you believe to be the least effective.  Explain why.

This window is not effective because the colors in the background are too distracting, and they overshadow the product. The space in the window is not well used; they could have filled it with merchandise in a more pleasing way. The layout chosen to display the books is boring and expected. -Cynthia T.

The window that I found to be least effective was the MANGO window. Coming up from the escalator, the first thing that I noticed was the corner window cut straight through the mannequins body and face.  The colors were very drab and come to think of it, there wasn’t any color at all.  However, walking across the front of the store, you can clearly see the colors in the store are a lot brighter than from front, plain view. Colors like peach, tangerine, and hot pinks pop through the horrible displays blocking the windows. – Brandi M.

3. Name a store that featured Color Blocking – Horizontal Merchandising – Product Merchandising

J.Crew featured all three – Brandi M.

 

4.  Name a store that features a “trend area”.

Bloomingdale’s makes use of trend areas to advertise what is new in the store.  Like an editorial in a magazine, trend areas showcase the season’s must haves. -Cynthia T.

5. Name a store that uses printed graphics.

I found this one myself.  It’s Bath and Body.  Printed graphics are a cheap and easy way to decorate your windows.

Students also were asked to name a store that creates ambience with music or scent.  Hands down the clear winners were Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister.  If you live in the US, all you have to do is just walk by one of these stores, you don’t even have to go in,  and you can smell that strong perfume wafting out!  I hear from my students who have worked there that customers complain all the time, but for some odd reason they won’t change their rule on spraying the store every 30 minutes!

These are some of the techniques I have been lecturing about in class:

• Color Blocking
• Horizontal/Vertical/Product Merchandising
•  Trend Areas
• POP (point-of-purchase)
• Store Ambience

Feel free to ask questions if you need more assistance…..see you in class!

The History of Visual Merchandising – cont’d

The role of the visual merchandiser is an ever-changing one.  Just as brands exist within a store, the stores themselves have become brands.  You don’t expect to see the same merchandise at JC Penney as you would at Barneys?  This is important for the visual merchandiser because you are given the task of communicating the store’s image through your displays.

And this is becoming harder for us to do.  Why?  Because we are being faced with unprecedented competition, retailers didn’t have years ago.  Brick and mortar retailers are facing one of the biggest challenges to traditional shopping.  Any idea on what that is?

Click here for the answer

Here’s a clue of what it looks like:

Retailers are under a lot of pressure to attract and keep customers coming into their stores when shopping from home has become so convenient and price competitive.  Visual merchandisers are key in attracting and keeping a customer’s attention.

Luckily shopping is a social activity and many people do like to go out just to see what’s new!  I for one am one of those persons, and I know many others are too.