Table Setting

Draeger's, a California retail establishment founded in 1925, has a multifaceted nature. It includes a gourmet grocery, a restaurant, a deli, a floral shop, a cooking school, and a retail area selling tabletop items, party goods, and cooking supplies. Recently, the San Mateo branch of the three-store chain found itself confronting an equally diverse clientele. Located in Silicon Valley, the store had always had a wealthy customer base; but now it had a new, younger group coming in, thanks to the Internet gold rush.

The management decided that this was the perfect time to introduce a new tabletop designer: Martha Sturdy. Sturdy's modern dinnerware pieces were a great departure from the traditional product that Draeger's usually stocked. But the feeling was that they could appeal to the new customers as well as the old, if presented properly.

The decision was made to hold a Martha Sturdy trunk show on August 4, 2000. But that wouldn't be enough to make a real splash. So, in the three weeks preceding the trunk show, director of visual merchandising Michael Zimmerman created a series of displays showing off the breadth and versatility of Martha Sturdy's collection.

The displays were created on the central landing of the tabletop department. Zimmerman changed the tables each week to feature a different aspect of the collection. In one display, rectangular white dishes were placed on red matting and surrounded with chopsticks and a red container filled with greenery. This demonstrated to the Draeger's clientele that Martha Sturdy tableware could work well with a simple Asian-inspired decor. Another display showcased the grand side of Martha Sturdy: With opulent gold bowls and chargers and fluted glassware, it cut an elegant baroque figure. A third display was the epitome of chic modernism. Pieces that evoke brushed steel were set on a black table decorated only with a stand of dried greenery and a river of gray and black pebbles.

Zimmerman welcomed the chance to share new style options with the customers and to give them firsthand evidence that Martha Sturdy dinnerware could complement every decor from Asian to Craftsman. "It was just a matter of getting them to see things more clearly," he explained.

The customers not only saw; they bought. In fact, a week after it introduced the line, Draeger's had to have a new shipment rushed to the store, for fear that there wouldn't be any left by the time Sturdy appeared for the trunk show. The response was so great that, over the course of 2000, Martha Sturdy became one of Draeger's bestselling collections. Draeger's sold 160 units of the line, for a total of roughly $20,000, in 2000. "This was quite an achievement for an upper-end, niche market product line which had not even been introduced until the year was more than half over," Zimmerman noted. "Since that time, we have received calls from as far away as Europe, from friends of friends who just had to get themselves a piece of Martha's artistry." Martha Sturdy is still at the top of Draeger's list of special orders.

Draeger's success in introducing a new collection to a varied customer base is proof that nothing speaks as strongly as an enticing visual display.