Retail Image: Layout and Visual Merchandising

An example of a customer behavior that IKEA doesn't necessarily take into consideration in their store layout is

NOT: Customers want to walk clockwise

A wood flooring in a store can communicate a

Natural or outdoorsy feel.

The advantage of a grid layout is the ability to create well-placed promotions and

Power walls full of similar items to draw shoppers into a space they might not otherwise see. Retailers can create dramatic power walls of merchandise in the grid format space because they can take advantage of their wall space so well.

When you create a visual merchandise display with a mannequin dressed in several pieces of clothing the store is trying to sell by utilizing groups of

Prop Groupings

When a home goods store puts together a display featuring a dining room table that shows off a boxed set of dishes, water glasses, and napkins they have on sale, this is an example of the visual merchandising grouping called

Prop groupings. The dining room table is a prop that shows off the atbleware.

Racetrack or Loop Layouts

Pros: Retailers can provide a great "shopping experience" using this layout Promotions are easier to execute, because the layout really controls what the shopper sees Encourages browsing Cons: Customers who want to run in and pick up something quickly are often discouraged when faced with this layout Not a good layout for a high-turnover store, like a pharmacy or a convenience store

Mixed, or Free Flow, Layout.

Pros: Ideal for a store offering smaller amounts of merchandise Easy to create a shopping experience in this layout Cons: Less space to display product Easier to confuse the customer

Grid Layout

Pros: It's easy to categorize products Shoppers are used to the grid layout style and shop it easily Cons: It's boring, and it's difficult to use this layout to create a "shopping experience" for the customer Customers often can't take shortcuts to what they need Line of sight is limited, forcing a customer to look up and down aisles Visual "breaks" are needed to keep shoppers engaged

Subscription shopping is when a shopper

Provides information to a company that then uses it to send her products every month

Providing a great shopping experience, easy browsing and easy-to-execute promotions are advantages of the

Racetrack Layout

Shoppers need to "orient" themselves.

Referred to sometimes as the "transition zone" or "decompression zone," this is the area where a customer gets used to the idea that he or she is in a store. It's where they stop to see which way they might go. Usually there are shopping carts and welcome signs in this area, but not much else, because customers aren't yet ready to focus on the shopping experience.

When a shopper makes a purchase, he is looking for

Secure and diverse payment options

A retailer can communicate an anticipated shopping experience to a customer before he enters a store with a window display, but he may not be able to

Sell the merchandise in the window as easily as if he displayed it the store

Cheap cardboard displays that high-end retailers aren't as likely to use are called

Shippers

Shoppers will want to veer to the right when they walk into a store, so retailers

Should not put their best merchandise off to the left.

If you send a stylist your measurements and the stylist sends you new clothes to try on every month, you're engaging in

Subscription Shopping.

An in-aisle promotion doesn't allow the retailer to actually make a visual display of her sale items, but it does allow her to

Tell the shopper about a lot of items that are on sale.

If a store layout is going to facilitate good customer traffic flow, it should keep in mind

The customer shopping behaviors of walking counterclockwise, not wanting to shop upper and lower floors, avoiding narrow aisles and needing a "transition zone." Any layout that doesn't keep these four behaviors in mind will most likely fail.

An angular layout helps a retailer control costs because

The displays take up a lot of space and you don't need a lot of merchandise. Retailers like to keep as little inventory as necessary and the angular layout displays allow them to full up a store with larger, curvy displays instead of lots of product.

An appealing home page is like

The front of the store, with a transition zone and not much else going on but a picture or two, maybe a sale sign and a navigation menu

The grid layout helps retailers create easy-to-see promotions, which control costs because

The manufacturer can "lease" that good space and help offset the cost of the discounted item.

A customer won't walk down an aisle if it's too narrow and that means

The merchandise in that aisle won't get seen or sold.

A grid layout features some disadvantages, like poor line of sight and

The need for frequent "visual breaks" to keep the shopper engaged.

If you want to encourage browsing and make sure the customer has the opportunity to see every piece of merchandise in the store, you could choose to use

The racetrack, or loop layout.

If a shopper tries to shop on an ecommerce platform that slow and doesn't load photos well, it's likely that

The shopper will leave the site. There's nearly a 40% chance that the shopper will leave rather than wait for the website to load.

IKEA encourages customers to walk into small, narrow spaces, follow a clockwise path past all their merchandise, and shop all the floors of the store even though

These are not natural customer shopping behaviors.

A forced path layout is often not a customer's favorite shopping layout because

They're forced to go through areas that have products they're not interested in.

Making merchandise visible, tangible and accessible, and giving customers good choices are the

Three rules of visual merchandising.

The mixed layout is ideal for a store offering smaller amounts of merchandise, but

Traffic flow can be easily disrupted and customers can get confused.

A good example of prop grouping is when a retailer

Uses a piece of Astroturf to display a new lawn mower and fertilizer spreader on sale.

If a store layout ignores the customer shopping behaviors of ________ and ________, the retailer may lose sales.

Walking counterclockwise and avoiding upper and lower floors.

A dump bin is a great tool if a retailer

Wants to sell a bunch of similar items at a discounted price.

A store layout facilitates good customer traffic flow

When it takes into consideration the customer shopping behaviors

An expert says that IKEA's store layout is a psychological weapon used to confuse and disorient shoppers into spending more. A great example of this is

When the shopper picks up something right away because he's afraid he won't ever find it again.

A complementary grouping could be happening on a website when

You add an item to your cart and the website tells you that "customers also bought" these items.

An advantage of having both a brick-and-mortar store and an online shopping platform is

You can provide omnichannel shopping options for your customers

A disadvantage of having an online retail platform only is

Your shopper's attention spam is much smaller than if he were in your brick-and-mortar store. Shoppers sometimes spend only a couple of minutes on a site, and if any effort is required to purchase something or if a site is slow to load the shopper may not purchase.

Walking counterclockwise, needing a "transition zone" and avoiding narrow aisles are examples of

customer shopping behaviors

A shopper might spend up to 30% more on a website if it offers

free shipping.

If you want to highlight merchandise or draw attention to a certain area of your store, you can

use accent lighting

If a retailer wants to tell shoppers that an item is on sale while they're shopping that item in an aisle, he might use

A Shelf Talker

If a customer has very little time and knows exactly what he needs, he's probably not going to be happy walking into a store with this kind of layout:

Forced Path

The diagonal layout can help a retailer control cost by

Giving the store employees better line-of-sight to see if someone's stealing.

A website that's quick to load, easy to navigate and has a quick and secure checkout option is a website that has

Good basic user experience UX features.

Basic user experience features for a website should include

Good photos, a good search feature, instant customer service

Promotions are easily executed in this layout because there are predictable focal points.

Grid layout

One use of flooring in a store is to

Help guide customer traffic flow. Carpet and tile can create a natural path for customers, guiding them from one area to the next.

Shoppers hate narrow aisles. In most cultures, that is.

If customers have to pass each other at an uncomfortably close distance, they won't go down the aisle.

Shoppers avoid upper and lower floors.

In fact, shoppers really enjoy staying on the same floor they started on when they entered the store.

An angular layout can help a retailer control costs because

It allows for a retailer to keep lower inventory levels.

A disadvantage of a shipper is that

It looks cheap and is usually made of cardboard

An angular store layout features displays that take up a lot of space, so it's best for

Jewelry, high-end clothing; and other high-end products for which a retailer keeps a minimal inventory.

Narrow aisles mean

Light or no customer traffic flow, and merchandise that isn't looked at by shoppers

A voice-activated online shopping experience is

Like ordering from Google Play or Amazon's Alexa, where you tell the virtual assistant what you'd like shipped to you, and it is shipped. People think of a product they need, mention it to their virtual assistant, and they don't have to think about it again.

A retailer will use accent lighting to

Make a product look better or draw attention to a certain area of the store.

Providing a navigation menu that helps visitors choose product types, and then narrow down those choices even more by color, size, and price range, is like

Making the merchandise accessible and tangible for the shopper.

If you're shopping on an ecommerce platform and you start sorting the item you're looking for by color, size and price range, you are

Making the product more accessible and tangible. You can't feel the materials or check to see that the color is perfect, but this activity is the electronic equivalent of moving items around on the shelf and trying to find the one you like the best.

One disadvantage of point of sale displays is that

Mothers hate them because their kids are always tempted by candy, but many retailers have turned this into an advantage. You don't want your shopper to hate or resist your display, but some grocers advertise "candy free" point of sale aisles to let their shopper know they're thinking about their issues.

End caps are great for promotions and can

Be "leased" to manufacturers to promote a brand.

A customer shops for wine at a local grocery store. She sees a display of wine, fruit, cheese, and bread that help her think about how she might serve a particular wine. What is this type of display called?

Bundled Group of merchandise

If a website pulls up pictures of things that "customers also bought" when you're adding something to your card, this could be an example of

Complementary Grouping

If you display merchandise right inside the door of a store with a grid layout, customers may not pay any attention to the display, because

Customers need a "transition zone" to get used to the idea of the store, and they won't see the merchandise because they aren't yet focused on the shopping experience. Usually only shopping carts and welcome signs are found in the area just inside the door, because it's not productive floor space.

Racetrack layouts offer the advantage of providing a great shopping experience to its customers, but a disadvantage is

Customers who want to run in and pick something up are often discouraged.

Options like ACH, WePay, and Skrill are examples of

Diverse and secure payment options.

If a retailer has a lot of similar merchandise he wants to sell at a great price, he might employ

Dump Bin

The forced path layout of an IKEA store allows for

Every part of the store to be seen, which increases the likelihood all their merchandise is seen. The heat map showed that almost every part of the store was shopped, because customers follow the path - and others on the path- from one area to the next.

Shoppers walk counterclockwise.

Every time you enter a mall, a supermarket, the corner store, you will veer to the right if you're able. It's just what people do.

A multichannel approach to sales that seeks to provide the customer with a seamless shopping experience whether the customer is online, on the phone or in the store is called

An Omnichannel experience

Controlling everything a shopper sees and hears while he is engaging with a retailer's merchandise is

An advantage of having only a brick-and-mortar store.

Staffing - and the need for very few employees - is an advantage of

An online only retail platform.

The goal of a window display is to

Attract people who currently aren't in your store, so they can come in and do some shopping. A window display is meant to bring customers inside your store.