Setting the Mood

For a gift store, the line between seasonal decorating and display merchandising is a difficult one to walk. Too much “just for show” holiday decoration virtually guarantees a frustrating season of customers trying to buy the props instead of the products. But merchandise displayed on its own is less appealing than it is when properly accessorized and imaginatively combined.

On the other hand, if you display product in creative vignettes, too many sales will leave displays looking depleted, and discourage many last-minute customers. And that's not even to mention the challenge of creating a display that looks good without products getting lost in it — designed and executed in a short window of time during which retailers handle a bewildering array of new merchandise.

What's a gift store owner to do?

Fortunately, a few simple tricks and inexpensive tools can help retailers turn out professional looking Christmas displays in a short amount of time. In turn, retailers can teach their customers these tips for decorating the home, whether by selling how-to guides cross merchandised with the decorating product, or by holding in-store workshops during the holiday season. Retailers with a flair for pulling a holiday theme together can even offer in-home decorating services for high-end customers.

Becky McCraney and Kathy Harrison know all about retailing Christmas: they've owned Miss Cayce's Christmas Store in Midland, TX, for more than 20 years, and decorated the Texas State Capitol Tree in Austin in both 2004 and 2005. They're also the creators of the Show Me Decorating tree-trimming recipe DVD, which gives helpful tips on decorating for the holidays. McCraney and Harrison offer tips for space management when selecting a tree, as well as advice on lights, ornaments and florals to festoon the boughs, plus ideas for theming in-store decorations. (See box on page 79 for more.)

Retailers can first use the DVD to design their displays, and then sell it to customers. Just make sure the products mentioned are on sale in your store. “Our DVD has driven increased retail sales of ribbon, large Christmas balls, florals and garland,” says Harrison.

Another fruitful source of holiday display ideas are holiday vendors themselves. After all, vendor displays can make retailers who've seen it all want to buy. Why wouldn't their ideas work on customers?

Savvy retailers have been taking notes on particularly effective showroom vignettes for decades. Now Midwest, Cannon Falls, MN, has taken the process to the next level; they photographed the company's Atlanta displays and handed out an “ideas CD” of more than 100 images at this year's spring gift shows.

Midwest also provides tips like using more than one layered tree skirt (or unconventional equivalent, such as a quilt or rug), several kinds of garland (vertical streamers as well as classic swags), and trees with large needles and upswept branches to create an informal look; short needles and downswept branches look formal.

“Our customers are asking for more,” says Midwest spokesperson Shelli Lissick. The company plans to hand out a second CD at the summer shows, featuring 101 ways to use an ornament, from table centerpieces to windows, doors, mantels and railings, and even dangling baubles from a pet's collar or floating them in the bathtub.

Sandra Magsamen, author of the forthcoming book Living Artfully, suggests tying ornaments to giftwrap ribbons, substituting them for napkin rings, or using them to decorate garlands and wreaths.

The best Christmas displays incorporate year-round lessons of visual merchandising, including the power of repetition. If you don't have the time to keep refreshing displays, showcase the components in simple stacks or baskets around it, so shoppers admire the vignette but buy from open stock — and if anyone still picks directly from the branch, a replacement is right at hand.