{"id":58,"date":"2010-10-30T20:57:56","date_gmt":"2010-10-31T04:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/?p=58"},"modified":"2010-10-30T20:57:56","modified_gmt":"2010-10-31T04:57:56","slug":"on-visual-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/2010\/10\/30\/on-visual-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"On visual standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

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 \u2013 after all, as a sales associate, selling is my main job.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

So anyway, our store made budget for the quarter, our racks and shelves are looking good, and no one\u2019s yelling, so they must be good. Everything seems on track. Then our district manager \u2013 the big boss for the BC stores \u2013 walks in and asks us why the heck our sale items were on the front table.<\/p>\n

We explained that we made a simple strategic decision to put some sales items out front, where passing shoppers would see the eye-catching \u201cfor sale\u201d signs and come in for a look. That table really draws customers in, and once they\u2019re in us sales associates can work our magic.<\/p>\n

We also (cunningly?) placed the rest<\/em> of our sale items at the back of the store \u2013 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 <\/em>store\u2019s sale section is in the back\u2026 is this why?) I thought this was a pretty smart place\/distribution strategy.<\/p>\n

But wait! Our store seemed to have committed a Visual Merchandising Crime \u2013 i.e., we apparently weren\u2019t adhering to this season\u2019s visual codes (highlighting certain colours, showcasing non-discounted items, for example) with our front sales table.<\/p>\n

Well, okay. So the following day (Saturday) we changed the front table to comply with the fall colour and style codes, and \u2013 I don\u2019t know if this is a coincidence or not \u2013 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\u2019d only made maybe $800 (a major disaster).\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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 \u201ccharacter\u201d. As I later realized from comm 296, these are all part of the situational factors that may prompt more people to buy.<\/p>\n

But I feel that store managers should be able to have more power over their own store, especially if they\u2019ve \u201cproven\u201d themselves with making budgets quarter after quarter, as our store has. We\u2019re located right beside another clothing store known for selling inexpensive clothing. We know our clientele\u2019s demographics, and there\u2019s nothing they like more or appreciate\u00a0than a sale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

But whatevs. Our store made budget, so that ought to placate the bosses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2013 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3762,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/steph06\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}