I work part-time at a fairly large clothing chain. Ever since I started comm 296, marketing has always been at the back of my mind when I work – after all, as a sales associate, selling is my main job.
I am acutely aware that I am selling the brand through how I look and what I do. Keeping the store clean and the music at a decent level are also situational factors that may positively influence customers to buy. I’ve categorized what I do during my shifts into basically two things: keeping the merchandise/store looking good (which can be extremely hard during the mad holiday rushes), and keeping our customers feeling good.
So anyway, our store made budget for the quarter, our racks and shelves are looking good, and no one’s yelling, so they must be good. Everything seems on track. Then our district manager – the big boss for the BC stores – walks in and asks us why the heck our sale items were on the front table.
We explained that we made a simple strategic decision to put some sales items out front, where passing shoppers would see the eye-catching “for sale” signs and come in for a look. That table really draws customers in, and once they’re in us sales associates can work our magic.
We also (cunningly?) placed the rest of our sale items at the back of the store – so customers would have to walk through all of our merchandise before they reached the holy land. (Now that I think about it, nearly every store’s sale section is in the back… is this why?) I thought this was a pretty smart place/distribution strategy.
But wait! Our store seemed to have committed a Visual Merchandising Crime – i.e., we apparently weren’t adhering to this season’s visual codes (highlighting certain colours, showcasing non-discounted items, for example) with our front sales table.
Well, okay. So the following day (Saturday) we changed the front table to comply with the fall colour and style codes, and – I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not – the store was absolutely dead. This was on a Halloween weekend. Practically no one came into the store in the morning, and by 2pm we’d only made maybe $800 (a major disaster).
I understand that consistency is hugely important in a store chain. In fact, I advocate visual standards. I obsessively fold corners to 90-degree perfection, tuck in every price tag, and pop every mock-neck collar for added “character”. As I later realized from comm 296, these are all part of the situational factors that may prompt more people to buy.
But I feel that store managers should be able to have more power over their own store, especially if they’ve “proven” themselves with making budgets quarter after quarter, as our store has. We’re located right beside another clothing store known for selling inexpensive clothing. We know our clientele’s demographics, and there’s nothing they like more or appreciate than a sale.
There’s also an art to dressing a mannequin attractively, as there is in positioning racks. Shelves that are too close together, or racks that are too tightly packed, will both deter customers from looking, touching, and therefore buying. Anyone who has ever worked in retail will know how much work actually goes into what customers simply see when they walk in. So I guess it stung a little that we still failed our visual standards check.
But whatevs. Our store made budget, so that ought to placate the bosses.