One of my favorite parts about market is getting to see all of the amazing displays. It’s so much fun to come up with creative ways to show our products. Hopefully we were able to give those who saw our showroom a few helpful merchandising ideas. For all of those who didn’t see our displays – this post is for you!
We Didn’t Reinvent the Wheel, We Just Painted It.
Frolic is our brand new collection designed by artist Lynn Morris. We are thrilled with the way this display turned out, and so were all of our showroom visitors! It got quite a bit of attention, and many people wondered how they could recreate this display in their own store. So, I included some tips below from our merchandising experts!
The thing about this display that really turned heads was the creative, unexpected use of tires. The bold colors and festive polka dots were definitely a hit. If you want to create a tire display in your own store, ask around at local garage or tire center – often they have old tires they’re trying to get rid of, so you can offer to take some off their hands. Most likely they’ll be happy to give you the tires for free – otherwise the garage has to pay a fee to dispose of them.
Do It Yourself…
First, coat the tires with Kilz primer/sealer/stainblocker spray – you can find it at your local hardware store. This will prevent the road oil from leaching out of the tires, giving you more clean, even base to work with. After the Kilz dries, choose some colors and paint your tires. You can use spray paint or a can & brush – either way will work. Once your paint dries you can add polka dots, stripes, zig-zags… get creative! Fill the tires with a thick base of craft styrofoam so that you have something to poke your yard stakes into. For a finished look, you’ll want to hot-glue moss to the foam to cover it up. Add in some plants (live or fake) and voila!
You could also make a fun display by hanging your painted tires on a wall. We created a peace-themed display and then planted mini gardens inside the tires we hung. It was a great way to make a big statement and call attention to our smaller items.
Seeing Double
One of the most fun ways to create a display is to base it off of a particular product. We chose one of our best-selling designs (Geraniums by the Dozen) and brought it to life in our showroom. It was such a great attention grabber for shoppers – it’s fun and unexpected to see a flat piece of artwork become a 3-dimensional display.
Wood, White, & Blue
Our homemade American flag was definitely a hit. Some old wooden fencing, paint, and wooden stars made this the perfect centerpiece for our patriotic-themed display. Americana/patriotic displays are a must for summer. It’s so easy to pull these items together, and the celebratory red, white, and blue make it a display shoppers can’t pass up!
An Absorbing Display
Art Coasters are one of the most fun things to play with for displays. They’re versatile, colorful, and sometimes witty! We built a bar and lined its edges with coasters so that visitors could get a sense of all the different themes we have to offer. By breaking some of the coasters out of their packaging, we were able to create an eye-catching display that showed off the product well and really drew people in.
Pots You Can’t Pass Up
Our Art Pots are brand new this year, and we couldn’t be more excited about them! This display was perfect for showing off each of the 41 different designs we have. The tiers were great for creating an interesting display that drew the eye all the way from floor to ceiling.
We merchandised some of the pots with plants, but wanted to show that they can also be used as containers or little gift baskets for occasions like Mother’s Day, housewarming, a “get well” gift, a present for a teacher, etc. These Art Pots are the perfect price point for a unique and thoughtful gift-to-go!
The standing round display and the hanging display that we built for our showroom in The Gardens were perfect for shopping these pots. Customers could easily walk all the way around and see every pot at a glance, and the natural wood didn’t compete with the bright colors of the Art Pots. If you want to create these displays in your own store, get some old lumber or pallet wood, trim it into the shape you’d like, and put the boards together using screws, nails, or wood glue. We ran a pipe up the middle of the round display and used pipefittings to keep each shelf in place. The hanging display was suspended from the ceiling with rope.
A Few Not-So-Mini Gardens
Last, but certainly not least, I wanted to show a few pictures of the Gypsy Garden displays. Our display & merchandising team did an absolutely amazing job with these gardens. The life-size slide (below) definitely caught a lot of attention. It was bright, colorful, and, most importantly, it was unique. Displays that have this kind of “wow” factor can generate a lot of traffic for your store, so always be thinking of ways you can implement unique merchandising ideas!
For our coastal-themed mini garden items, we used color to make an attractive, cohesive display. We incorporated a lot of bright oranges and blues by bringing in some of our Art Planters, Art Pots, and Art Poles, and by painting the bases of the display.
Another popular display was our farm garden – complete with a wheelbarrow, seed packets, and hay bales. These Gypsy Garden items in particular speak to both the farm-to-table and buy local movements, which have been gaining a lot of momentum in recent years, so we really wanted to highlight this theme. Pulling in related products like the Buy Local Yard DeSign and Earth to Table Art Pole Garden by Stephanie Burgess really helped to complete the story.
If you’re looking for a great way to display our Gypsy Garden products in your store, check out our new Gypsy Caravan display. It’s a simple way to make a big statement, and with everything all in one place, it’s really easy for customers to shop. The gift bags offer an easy way for shoppers to create a special gift-to-go for a birthday, get well wish, mother’s day, or “just because.” The display also comes with the 15″ Bloom Burst Art Planter, which is perfect for showing an example of a planted mini garden. Putting the items into a real mini garden will help tell the story of mini gardening to customers who may be unfamiliar with the concept.
That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed getting a peek at our showroom and that you are inspired to create unique displays in your own store! For more pictures of creative displays, Like us on Facebook and check out our photo albums in the “Photos” tab!
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