The Craft of Visual Merchandising for Retail Window Displays

 Retail store windows are all about creating great first impressions. And that is a reason good enough for store owners to invest in visual merchandising of the shop window displays.

Visual merchandising is a subtle art. As much as it contributes to making a store look aesthetically inviting, it also aims to generate more revenue by means of bringing in more customers to the store — customers who might have had no intentions to enter the store otherwise. In that sense, a window display is a brand’s most notable marketing statement.

What does your store promise to offer?

Why is your business better than the thousands of other shops selling similar products?

If the visual merchandising on your store’s window display is done right, it will reflect on your sales.

In this blog, we will go through some of the most remarkable visual merchandising designs. Hopefully, by the end of this article, your mind will be running wild with creative design ideas of your own that you can use for your store’s window displays.

Table Of Contents

• 3 Creative Trends and Examples of Visual Merchandising in Retail Window Displays
• 1. Creating a cinematic charm — Coach New York
• 2. Creating experience — John Lewis
• 3. Using a digital-physical interfusion — Gucci
• 12 Tips To Leverage Visual Merchandising On Your Store’s Window Display
• The Secret to Effective Visual Merchandising of Window Displays
• Storytelling first
• Nothing beats a surprise element
• It doesn’t have to cost much
• The Bottom line is…

3 Creative Trends and Examples of Visual Merchandising in Retail Window Displays

Creativity silently evolves with the change in technology, the human psyche, and the business landscape. So, before sharing our useful tips, let’s discuss some trending storefront visual merchandising designs with real-life examples of successful brands.

1. Creating a cinematic charm — Coach New York

Whether it is an out-and-out Wes Anderson movie-inspired theme or the designer’s original interpretation of any pop culture, there is a growing trend among visual merchandisers to blend cinematic stories with brand storytelling.

Here is an example of how art director Samar Younes brought back the golden days of rock-n-roll with an Elvis Presley-inspired visual merchandising setup for Coach’s window display. The luxury fashion brand featured its Spring 2017 collection with the hues of dissident and rebellious youths representing the 50’s American subcultures.

Source: Samar Younes

2. Creating experience — John Lewis

We are addicted to screens. So much so that our aesthetics have mutated in the post-digital era. A Pew research has reported that technology has “played a major role in broadening the boundaries of what is considered art.”

In visual merchandising, too, brands are converting the store windows into a hybrid display ecosystem of digital screens, mannequins, and physical props.

Digital signage is a regular among the business tools used for advertisement & marketing. However, in the past few years, LED signage has gained a lot of clout as a visual merchandising prop for swaying the average consumer’s purchase decisions.

Screens have proved to be the most valuable window display installations due to the power of audio-visuals, multimedia-based storytelling, and interactivity.

A fantastic example could be the window displays of the UK-based retailer John Lewis, precisely its retail outlets at Oxford Street and Sloane Square. Disrupting the tradition of subtle visual merchandising, the designers went bold and doubled their window displays for an experiential retailtainment campaign called ‘Beautiful On and Off.’

Source: Inspiration Feed

John Lewis’s storefront featured a series of Smart TVs and video walls that supported voice and gesture controls. The audio from the digital displays was carried across the glass window using invisible speakers.

Originally Published as The Craft of Visual Merchandising for Retail Window Displays on Pickcel Digital Signage Blog