Santoro & Company

When your store is located in a relatively remote rural location, visual merchandising means more than just creating eye-catching in-store displays. To help draw customers, Joe Santoro and Michael Bohannan, owners of Santoro & Company in Bridgeton, NJ, use a visual display device they call “lawn candy” — a combination of signage and merchandise placed strategically near the roadside — to attract attention to their gift and antiques shop. In addition, a large sign on the end of one building makes it clear that the shop offers more than dusty antiques.

Inside the store, traditional vignettes created by Santoro and Bohannan inspire customers to explore, to envision new decorating ideas — and most of all to buy. Decorating and display is a transformational process at Santoro & Co. Because of the mix of old and new merchandise in the shop, displays need to be fluidly designed for easy alteration as items are sold and new pieces introduced. Displays are often built around one key ingredient — a piece of furniture, a color, a seasonal theme, a massed gathering of one item — that establishes a mood or sense of style. To keep things looking fresh, Santoro and Bohannan mingle colors, mix textures, add unexpected touches and/or rearrange the elements to alter the entire look of a display. In turn, they encourage customers to learn from these techniques, and apply a similar approach when decorating their own homes.