Life becomes difficult when we walk into a store and see all fashion goods scattered everywhere!! What to choose and how to match becomes a tough choice. After all we all want to look our best, and with windows displays in view, that just may be the inspiration we are looking for. With evolving fashion culture and distributed responsibilities this new art is termed as ‘Visual Merchandising’ (VM)
So if ever you thought you are good in conceptualizing and designing store displays, then VM could be for you. It mainly revolves around developing, creating, and implementing in-store displays and other store visuals to entice customer to check out the store's products.Visual merchandising provides a flamboyant experience to the individual in merging the interiors, products, with the architecture of the space and the music to go with.
However, there is a wide range of work in which the Visual Merchandiser has to work and there are professional courses in it. In these courses the student is taught all about retail store layout, aligning and presentation of fixtures and display, windows display, innovative usage of communication tools, improvising the look of the store with interplay of lights and shadows to highlight the products and adding value to their presence.
Every product has its own charm and its own history to gel with; a visual merchandiser has to combine the available resources to create a story out of them but also devise, implement and execute effective merchandising strategies.
In the recent Watch World Award 2010 in Delhi, luxurious watch manufacturer Seiko won the award for the best in store VM, hence, proving the point for greater opportunities for upcoming students. “Visual merchandising entices the consumer to have a look at the product even when in normal conditions they might not have entered in the store and we strive at making the ambience appealing to the customer,” revealed Tetsuji Ishimaru, MD – Seiko. Quite a strategy to lure customers in.
“Visual Merchandising is a great tool to attract customers with varied and exciting concepts and stories made from the products, which gives an idea to the buyer what and how to wear. Hot spots are made in the stores to inform about the latest fashion trends,” shared Deepak who is heading the VM part for brands like John Player and Wills Lifestyle. "The whole process is a combination of team work as the designers decide about the collection and the visual merchandiser gives his input on the number of looks to be present in the store, folds to the clothes, number of baskets to be present, etc", added Deepak.