The Power of Visual Merchandising

Stores will become museums.

Visual Merchandising is the creation of an exceptional atmosphere marked with an extraordinary ambience that resonates with the brand’s identity, ensuring optimal presentation of products to induce sales. The appeal of luxury resides in its enticing aura of personal indulgence, prestige and glamour. Visual Merchandising helps in the conceptualisation of the abstract ecstasy of luxury and plants it in a space that instantly evokes attention of (even potential) clientele. Visual Merchandising boosts customer engagement by enveloping them in the unique spirit of the label’s character while maximising the return on commercial retail space.

A vital component of the fashion industry, luxury giants like Hermes, Gucci and Chanel all have extremely ingenious visual merchandising strategies that transform with each season’s collection and culture. These epochal, memorable experiences are crafted through two approaches: by building the magnetism of the store’s exterior and the careful designing of the interior displays. Do you remember driving past a luxury car showroom at night? You probably do because it is fashioned to be indelible. The Porsche showroom located at Pedder Road in Mumbai crafts a bewitching dark setting. It is marked only by the light of the red Porsche name and the spotlights accentuating the splendid automobiles, visible through the crystal-clear glass panels. Even the momentary experience of driving-by is captivating and tempting. The Italian luxury fashion house of Moschino is famous for its eccentric and vibrant designs featuring riots of colours and a love for fairies. The brand’s retail space featured a big handbag that acted as a closet and displayed the Moschino merchandise. The catchy-design was devised to fascinate and charm the customers. Attractive and refreshing, visual merchandising makes an instant impression.

Let us also take a look at some of the most delightful visual merchandising inspirations that have a flair for ingenuity and originality - some which are contemporarily designed and some other window displays which go beyond the traditional.

1. Louis Vuitton’s “Your Loss of Senses” Elevator

Louis Vuitton has always been located at the height of creation. This house is still at the head of fashion more than a century later thanks to a valuation of our heritage while we continue to anticipate coming trends.

Louis Vuitton’s flagship store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris underwent a massive makeover in 2005. Crafted as a stand-alone art piece in the luxury retailer that is in itself a work of art, Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, decided to build an elevator that would enhance the comprehensive appeal of the establishment. The elevator immersed the customer in a total absence of light and absolute silence - an antithesis of what visual merchandising generally emulates. The space created a 20 second void that repealed all sensual stimulation so when the doors open, the client is primed to intake and fully enjoy the plush and luscious surroundings. Although Your Loss of Senses has been removed now, the elevator still generates much excitement and buzz.

2. Hèrmes’ “Eternal Jungle” Window Display

Shop windows play the role of host – the smiling face that greets passersby, the wind of change that delivers new seasons.

Debra Templar, Merchandising mavin, Owner of The Templar Group

The Hèrmes Store at Hong Kong International Airport exhibited the “Eternal Jungle” creation by designers Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann of French art studio Zim & Zou. The artists made use of PEFC paper sheets - an environmentally conscious and yet, a delicate and adaptable material - to create the jungle, full of vegetation indigenous to Hong Kong, made of 600 leaves. They used carefully selected leather cut-offs from the Hèrmes workshops to design the inhabitants of this jungle - a money, a toucan and a chameleon. The artwork had been handcrafted with the utmost attention to detail with more than 200 hours of work going into the creation of each animal. The entire display presented the onlooker with an exciting invitation into the refined world of the wild.

3. Tiffany & Co.’s Fragrance Vending Machine

The store is a tool of communication, and it’s the successful retailer who will strategically curate the deployment of technology into the store to expand the dialogue with the targeted customer. It’s the visionary retailers and Visual Merchandisers who are nimble and forward thinking who will succeed.

In 2018, Tiffany & Co. unveiled a truly decadent vending machine for their blissful fragrances at their boutique located at Covent Garden. It is UK’s first vending machine that allows transactions above the typical £30 limit. Working with the K6 Design Group, the label hopes to encourage creativity and playfulness by crafting a new contemporary space for themselves. Installing the world’s chicest machine, however, is just one of the innovations that the jewellery brand has undertaken. The new boutique also features Tiffany Blue wooden crates displaying whimsical 'Everyday Object' accessories and a #MakeItTiffany personalisation bar. Tiffany makes use of Worldline’s VALINA for contactless, chip and mag stripe transactions.

4. Bvlgari’s Serpenti Building

When designing a store, we’re not merely designing a selling centre, but rather an experience. Great Visual Merchandising will tell stories while transporting viewers to new places, new times, and new states of mind. Additionally, great Visual Merchandising will create moments, landmarks, and points of view.

The Snake, Bvulgari’s spirit animal, has established itself as a jewellery icon for the label’s Serpenti Collection since 1960s. Drawing inspiration from the “powerful, mysterious and unexpected” nature of the serpent, the Collection has been recognised as the highest unique expression of Bvlgari’s artistry. For the Christmas Holidays in 2012, the Italian Luxury Jewellery label displayed larger than life embodiments of their Serpenti necklace coiled around the building of the Flagship Boutiques in Tokyo, Rome and New York. At the Fifth Avenue Store, the serpent appeared from the cap of the building with the snake’s head and tail coming together at the corner of the building. Crafted out of thousands of LEDs stringed to create the 53 scales, the 200-foot-structure stayed curled up against the building till the February of 2012.

5. Le Labo Fragrances

Visual Merchandising has assumed a more strategic role, not only linked to an attractive way of distributing the product but also to the selling logic. The sales monitoring in relation with the distribution of the product, let you define the consumers’ behaviour, giving out important informations about the product and its presentation into the store.

Located on Elizabeth Street in New York, Le Labo was founded in 2006. Now set up across many locations, each store is a fragrance lab open to the public. Having developed the core collection of 18 unisex perfumes and 10 soy-based wax candles, they also offer genderless body formulas and a grooming line. Elegantly stylised with polished concrete, Georgian glass and raw steel, their unique selling point is the customised sensorial experience they offer. The customer is offered a choice to pick out their own favourite fragrances, which are freshly blended by the perfumer in the store, to create a singular piece of perfume as per the customer’s desires. Their craft, deeply rooted in the principles of slow perfumery, allow the client to wear their own individual scent from 5 days after being mixed, once the perfume has undergone the macerate process to bond together.

Conclusion

Visual Merchandising can transform a shopper into a buyer. It can also increase the average dollar amount per sale. Effective displays teach shoppers about using multiple basic and accessory items to enhance and extend the use of their purchases. With great merchandising it’s not uncommon to hear a shopper say ‘I want the lot’. That's silent selling at its best. The power of Visual Merchandising.

Windows are the eyes to the store.

Window displays, most recognisable form of visual merchandising, are very creative, thought-provoking and intriguing, inciting attention from all those who behold the store. There are so very many luxury brands known for their artistic and imaginative window displays - Harrods, Gucci, Chanel and Cartier to name a few. Visual merchandising forms close bonds with customer’s minds with its exquisite craft, original ideas and a premium shopping experience.