Posted : 02/01/2003

Posted : 02/01/2003

The Art Of Merchandising
Sell More Product With Displays And Testers

by Matt Morgan

You've stocked up on the season's hot new lotions, but the bottles are collecting dust on your shelves and sitting untouched in your display case. What's gives? Perhaps you're not doing all that you can to move lotions and other ancillary tanning supplies.

Selling products effectively takes a plan, which involves knowing your market, your customers and their tendencies, and keeping up with industry trends. It's all about merchandising.

Most of merchandising is in how products are displayed--how they are arranged in the salon to catch customers' eyes and lead to a sale. Salon owners need to decide if they prefer to sample lotions, whether to put products behind glass, and how often they should change the arrangement. With this plan in hand, it comes down to one main principle:

"A display must appeal to a customer's senses," says Janessa Messer, director of advertising and marketing for Leawood, Kan.-based Celsius Franchising, Inc. "If they are intrigued visually and can then feel and smell the items, they will be much more inclined to buy."

Charlie Dixon, owner of 10 Bronze Body Tanning Centers with headquarters in Beaumont, Texas, keeps a display of point-of-sale bottles right by the register, where customers are sure to see them. He gives his managers the freedom to develop their own display feel, within certain parameters.

At Mary's Tanning Isle, Inc. in Lebanon, Ohio, a basket of packettes for sale sets on the counter. "I carry things in the basket sometimes that I wouldn't carry in bottles, because it's a better seller," says Mary E. Lantz, president.

Robert Bales, owner of three Tropical Sun Tanning Salon locations in and around San Pedro, Calif., spreads out the products. "If you clumped up a product on one shelf, people get tunnel vision and they see everything as the same. But if you spread out the product, and do different lines on different shelves, which I do, people really like that."

Try Before You Buy

We live in a "try before you buy" world. We test-drive our cars, we compare demos for electronics, and we sample makeup in the malls. Why should tanning lotions be any different? Before tanners are going to spend their hard-earned money on you, they'll want to know they like the lotion enough to use all 8 ounces. For this reason, a successful merchandising program should include some sort of sample--whether it is a pump, packette or shot.

Bales is a firm believer. He always uses packettes given to him by manufacturers, and he also passes out Dixie cups full of new lotions to his customers--but not just any of his customers.

"I'll give them out to 20 percent to 30 percent of my customers--the customers who are going to notice the difference of products," he says. "We usually give it to people who have been tanning for awhile, so they know what the product's going to do. I believe there are a lot of customers out there who just want free products."

To maximize the effectiveness of his sampling, Bales uses a computer program to keep track of who gets what so he can follow up. "We ask them their opinion the next time they come in," he continues.

Lantz also gives out samples to her customers, especially for new lotions. "We let them touch it and smell it and try it," she says.

Many lotion manufacturers provide pumps or packettes for salons to use in their displays. It will vary whether they charge for those samplers or in how much they charge. For example, some companies offer free pumps with special purchases.

Manufacturers also will provide displays that complement their products. These are met with mixed feelings by salon owners.

"When manufacturers' displays are available and meet your needs, take advantage of them," Messer says. "But don't let the lack of available display materials prohibit you from merchandising well. If something isn't available that meets your needs, you should certainly create your own."

Lantz uses some manufacturers' displays but also creates her own, while Bales says his clientele needs more than the manufacturers' displays. "I'm kind of an upper-end-class salon," he says. "I like making my own counters and making my own displays. I feel they're more friendly than what the companies provide you."

There is no one solution, however. "Merchandising should definitely vary by location," Messer says. "Based on your customers' buying patterns, you have to decide what works for you. An elegant display in a blue-collar market might intimidate the buyer. And vice versa, a low-budget display will probably not appeal to a customer in a higher-income area."

Under Lock And Key?

To enclose or not to enclose--that is the question asked by many salon owners when it comes to displays. Some like to have their products out and easily accessible to employees and customers, while others prefer to keep their precious lotions locked up for security reasons.

Bales believes strongly about keeping his products in the open. "You really want to have it readily available," he says. "I do not like it behind glass cases, because if it's behind something, the customer's going to see that you're going to have to open up the case, and they're not going to bug you for that. They don't want to bother you if you're really busy."

The exception to Bales' rule is the products in the hallways. But he has a compromise there. So customers can read the bottles from behind the glass without assistance, he keeps one bottle facing the front and one of the same lotion facing the back, so customers who want more information on the ingredients can read them without assistance.

"Some customers don't care what the ingredients are," he continues. "They'll take the word of whoever's working that day. But I always tell customers if it's really busy that they can go read the back of the bottle." Still, the lotions in the enclosed hallway cases are accessible from behind the counter as well.

Dixon of Bronze Body remembers setting a manufacturer's display in front of the counter a few years ago. "Those got ignored like that," he says. "Customers are looking at you with your eye contact, and they look past you, especially if you have mirrored shelves behind the employees. That's generally what attracts their attention."

He has something in the works for extra pop behind the counter--a water wall made of slate to match the rest of the salon decor. Each glass shelf will be suspended with wire in front of the water wall to give the impression that the bottles on each shelf are suspended in air. "It's something that will set you apart, and bring attention to the lotions," Dixon says.

Products are locked up at Mary's Tanning Isle for necessity. "Things tend to grow legs and walk out a lot," Lantz says. "My glass case is closed. Of course you have to be very attentive to people looking at what's inside. You have to immediately go up and unlock it without them asking and say, 'Here, take a look.' Hand them the bottle, let them feel it. I also have jewelry in there. We tell them, 'That looks great. You'd love this. Put it on.'"

Change It Up

Consumers, by nature, are stimulated by sights and sounds, and have changing tastes. Just look at how television commercials and magazine ads are different even from last year or a few years ago. Advertisers constantly are morphing how their messages are delevered, and so should salons--only the "advertising" in salons come in the form of in-store displays.

Salons are no different than any other retail business, in that displays that fail to change also fail to keep the customers' attention. Conversely, displays that are different every week or month demand to be noticed by people walking through the lobby.

"Displays must be kept fresh or they lose appeal and the interest of your regular customers," Celsius' Messer says. "Change them as often as you can, but at least monthly. Also, make sure they are seasonal to increase sales when buying patterns naturally increase."

Lantz practices this in her salon. "We try to change displays about once every month for seasonal-type merchandising, and we'll at least move the bottles around every couple of weeks so it looks different."

Dixon does, too. It's a retail standard, he says. He arranges lotions so they don't blend together on the shelves, such as placing different-colored bottles next to each other.

"I change displays often, like every two weeks during the season, as opposed to every two months in the off- season. Just to give it a new look. It gets their attention. They'll get used to the same thing and not even notice it after a while, so you've got to rotate it around."

No matter what kind of merchandising plan a salon picks, it should be interactive. That's not to say the salon should be thumping with sound, video displays, touch screens or virtual-reality stations. We're talking interactive in the traditional sense--employees attending to customers, being available for every question and responding courteously and knowledgeably. It's the perfect complement to any merchandising program.

"Every employee has a different style of selling, but the gist is to ask every tanner if they have their lotion," says Tabitha Myers, owner of Tanning Place in Nashville, Tenn. "They're going to quiz them why they don't have it, and pretty much suggest that they definitely need it if they don't have it with them, and you can make a sale."

Dixon agrees. "I don't think it matters what kind of display you have or where you have it--you just need to pick the bottle up, put it in the customers' hands and talk to them about it."