Off the Cuff: A Good Showroom Lets You Show Off Your Stuff: Part 2 of 3

SALES & MARKETING

Off the Cuff: A Good Showroom Lets You Show Off Your Stuff: Part 2 of 3

May 24, 2010
By Mark L. Venit, MBA, Contributing Writer

In Part I of this three-part series, we explored questions that you should ask yourself with regard to your company’s showroom:

1. Does our showroom tell “our story” — our whole story?

2. Does our showroom inspire confidence in our professionalism?

3. Does our showroom present our company as neat, clean, efficient, friendly, and accommodating?

4. Does our showroom motivate customers and prospects to buy items they weren’t looking for, but decided to order as a direct result of seeing them in our showroom?

5. Is our showroom up to date?

For readers who want to be able to give more affirmative responses to these questions, let's now explore how to tag your samples to help your customers buy “up” at store fixtures. We'll also explore the use of mannequins and issues about displaying decorated or undecorated samples.

Good Tagging Promotes Self-Service
If there’s an ultimate goal I can recommend to you in developing your new or existing showroom, it’s to make it as self-service as possible — providing fundamental information so that a visitor can see what you’ve got, see their options and get a good grip on comparative pricing.

To that end, each item should be tagged with the sizes available, fabric content and pricing; the tag itself can do its job on an area no larger than a standard business card. Available colors can be listed or shown on a swatch card that is attached where it can be quickly seen and referenced. Whether your pricing system includes the first color imprint in one location, references a certain number of stitches or displays only the undecorated garment pricing to be used in a completely a la carte pricing model, the clearly marked dollars-and-cents enable any shopper to see the price ranges within a category of garments.

The effect of clear pricing on buyers is predictable and quite advantageous to you: Buyers often see for themselves — without being prompted by a salesperson — that spending a little extra to get a higher-grade garment may be well worth the difference. When showing higher-ticket items, such as jackets, you’ll see that customers frequently buy “up” to get extra detailing, a concealed hood in the collar, an extra interior pocket or other options.

Your selections for the golf shirts, poplin and denim sport shirts, and outerwear sections of your showroom should be those that you can source with confidence and in brands that you know provide solid value. But just because you can source virtually anything under the sun in garments doesn’t mean you want to show everything under the sun — and you’d need the area a small department store to accomplish all that.

Fixtures and Mannequins
Good, solid, presentable showroom fixtures are a must. Only consider what’s available to you before designing your showroom. To get started, Google the term “store fixtures.” Look at competitors’ showrooms (if you can find a good one) and stores in a nearby mall to get your brain into showroom-design mode. For merchandising your apparel, you have lots of latitude as to what’ll work for your environment: slatwall displays with waterfall arms, rounder racks, standard racks, grid wall, outrigging displays and more.

Don’t forget about including literature racks, signage and banners, proper lighting and what type of flooring will work best for your purposes. Keep the look of your showroom consistent; mixing chrome, wood and painted racks can look cheap and unsightly (though I’ve seen a few exceptions to the rule). Take care of the seemingly little details, such as what type of hangers you’ll be using. And listen to the Joan Crawford character as she warned in Mommy Dearest, “I told you never to use wire hangers!”

Got room for mannequins? Apparel displayed on mannequin forms attracts attention more than “rags on racks.” We’re all hard-wired to be drawn to human faces and the human form. With some mannequins on your payroll, you have the opportunity to tell a story — on teamwear, business attire, kids clothing and school spiritwear — showing the apparel in conjunction with bags, caps and accessories. You also can consider using “torso forms” and other specialized head, hand, foot and leg displays.

Mannequins are available in a variety of “people” and positions — male, female and child forms that can be standing or sitting with full-face makeup or weird, spacey looks. Using mannequins, you'll find creative solutions to energize your showroom and your sales. Mannequins and sharp display fixtures increase perceived value as well, often mitigating extreme concerns about the price of your offerings. Explore what’s available in used store display fixtures too, which often look like new, but sell at bargain prices. Local store fixture retailers are usually happy to help you with layout and design at no additional charge. And, of course, budget permitting, you can hire a local visual merchandising professional to do her or his magic; the investment will be well worth it and you can be confident of recovering your investment for years to come.

Editor's Note: For more information about store fixtures and mannequins, as well as resources to aid in effective merchandising and retail design, visit DDI Magazine.

Decorated or Undecorated Samples?
I’m frequently asked if samples should be decorated when displayed in a showroom. My answer is: Yes, some of your samples should be shown decorated. If you use waterfall displays, the garment at the front of the pack should appear decorated; the others behind it on that arm needn’t show the item decorated, but there’s no law against it. Items on hangers on horizontal racks needn’t be decorated. The main samples that should be decorated are the ones that are immediately visible. The items without visible fronts or backs can remain blank. The object here is that when someone comes to your showroom, it should create the immediate impression — and reinforce the idea — that decorated apparel is what you sell. A variety of printed and embroidered garments also will tell your story that you sell the gamut of technology and graphics.

In Part III, we’ll discuss some tips on displaying screen printed and embroidered designs, creating an environment conducive to boosting sales and some key considerations for your portable showroom — the one you’ll be utilizing at trade exhibitions.

Mark L. Venit, MBA, is president of Apparel Graphics Institute Ltd., Ocean Pines, Md., which provides management and marketing consulting and proprietary research to apparel graphics companies throughout the Americas and Europe. He also is the chairman of ShopWorks Software LLC, a provider of industry-specific business software. Venit teaches pricing, strategic marketing, salesmanship and other business management topics at the Imprinted Sportswear Shows. You can contact him at markvenit@cs.com.

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