You may have seen clothing stores where all clothes are presented according to colors. In one corner there are red clothes, in the second – black, in the third – green, in the fourth – blue, etc.
How right or wrong is this? Our teacher of the online course “Visual Fashion Merchandiser” will tell us about this today.
Become a visual fashion merchandiser!
Not so long ago, one of my students, who is taking an online course “Visual fashion merchandiser”, doing her homework on analyzing corners in clothing stores, told that the Mango store had come up with an interesting concept of space design.
Mannequins and racks of clothes in different colors were placed in the middle of the hall. On the one side they were yellow, on the other – orange, on the third – red, on the fourth – blue. Such an abundance of colors is very striking and makes the store very bright and interesting.
My student asked how successful or unsuccessful the color of the store is in terms of merchandising.
To begin with, I want to tell you that visual merchandising has two goals:
- To increase store sales, to make clothes sell themselves.
- To make the store’s style and image unique, to transform it from an ordinary place with clothes into a beautiful fashion boutique.
Based on this, many boutiques design their store in the following way: they hang up all the things that they have in stock by color. For example, on the first wall they hang all clothes in green, on another rack or hanger they hang all things in red, etc.
Visually, such a store looks unusual and interesting and, of course, it becomes very simple and easy to put and take clothes. The seller does not need to think for a long time, you can simply hang everything according to color.
Many cosmetics and perfumery, design and furniture stores also like to use color schemes. In case you do not have a clothing store, such a scheme can be beneficial for your store.
For an interior, a combination of several things in one color always looks good and beautiful.
Therefore, if we are talking about merchandising stores in general, such a scheme for displaying of things by color may be successful.
However, how successful is this approach in terms of increasing sales?
When a visual merchandiser hangs clothes up in a shop, he/she is primarily interested in getting customers to buy more items.
Usually a customer comes to a store for a specific item or specific items. For example, a woman wants to buy a skirt. She walks into a store and goes to where skirts are sold.
Let’s imagine that the store is divided by color scheme. For example, she wants to find a green skirt. She goes to the green corner, i.e. to the shelves where green clothes are hung, she sees three green skirts, chooses the one that she likes the most, goes to the fitting room, measures it, and if everything’s alright, she buys this skirt.
Everything seems to be fine, but how could it be better?
When a person chooses a thing, then intuitively he/she can take more clothes to the fitting room, if sees suitable things nearby in the set.
Let’s imagine that we have a green jacket and a green top hanging next to this green skirt in our store.
What is the possibility that a person will try on a green jacket and a green top with a green skirt? – Right, very small.
It is unlikely that in ordinary life people dress in fashionable monochrome combinations. Such options are chosen by some very stylish people. Usually, people still tend to combine some bright colors with neutral shades.
And if, for example, a white blouse and a beige top were hung on a hanger next to a green skirt, matching this skirt, the buyer would be more likely to be interested in such a combination. He/she would take three things at once that complement each other well and that can be further used in different clothing combinations.
This is exactly the problem of merchandising, when all things are hung by color.
If you add more neutral colors – black, beige, white or other colors, then the possibility that a person will buy more things in one purchase increases.
Therefore, you should not hang all the clothes in the store by color scheme.
It is best to always mix things up by color in each corner, and hang several things that can be combined in one set of clothes.
