The layout of your retail store displays should be given careful consideration. The goal is to create an environment in which your product naturally unfolds and reveals itself to your customers. But how is this accomplished, and how do we make a store front "shopper friendly"?

A variety of techniques have been found to be successful with regards to retail store display organization. The most widely accepted of these techniques is that similar products are grouped together in the same physical area of the store. In the broadest sense, an example of this would be found in department stores, where there may be entire sections of the store devoted to general categories of products, such as men's, women's, boys, and girls. Within each main section can be found subdivisions, for example, accessories, blouses, pants, skirts, perfume, and cosmetics.

This type of organization allows a consumer to easily browse and encounter specific lines of products for which they are looking. Within each subsection, teasers can be included to entice the customer to browse the other sections. For example, in a section which sold women's blouses, mannequins placed at eye level will not only feature blouses, but perhaps a skirt or pants, as well as a purse and jewelery. This type of visual merchandising increases the average per customer ticket, as additional items are discovered by the customer that they may not have initially considered buying.

An alternate approach is known as lifestyle merchandising. This is when unrelated products, as defined by product category, are placed together in order to reflect a certain lifestyle. This may be accomplished via retail displays that mimick rooms. For example, a display centered around a golfing lifestyle might contain golf shirts, khaki pants, golfing shoes, and even golf clubs, club covers, balls, hats, gloves and sunglasses. This type of merchandising is focused on the overall lifestyle of the target demographic, as oppossed to the category of product.

Thematic merchandising is another method of setting up retail store displays. A good example of this type of merchandising could be found in a display that is designed around a child's bedroom. In such a display, one might find a race car bed frame, matching race car comforters, sheets, and pillow cases, matching wall paint, lamps, alarm clocks, curtains, ceiling borders, wallpaper and other room accents, all similarly themed around the race car motif.

Of course, the above methods can be modified and even combined as appropriate. The important thing to remember is that there be some logical connection between all of the products in any given retail store display. The connection should not only be between the products, but also serve to connect with the customer.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online provider of retail store displays and store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.