What regular maintenance do you do to keep your store looking fresh?
Staff -- Gifts & Decorative Accessories, 3/1/2001
Irv Losman, Tiara Galleries & Gifts, Rockville, MD
We remodel often, and we're not afraid to spend money on fine, well-lighted fixtures to complement the lines. Last year we moved our offices to our warehouse and broke through the walls to create a Christmas shop with piped-in music and twinkling lights. We also created a gallery with special lighting and carpeting for Lightpost Publishing artists. This year we're adding two more shops for Swarovski and Lladro. Less is more in visual presentation: The idea of "rack 'em and stack 'em" is outmoded. Excitement, drama, and clarity of focus are important. Leave some empty space on the shelf, for example, so that the message is simple for the customer to absorb. We also decorate in traditional merchandising ways, including banners, flowers, and "Christmas-izing" the whole store.
Suellen Metke, Grand Heron, Aberdeen, WA
Of course we vacuum and dust our store all the time. We also have the windows washed once every three or four weeks. However, the best thing we do is redecorate our shop. We change our displays around a lot, and bring in a little bit of new stock every couple of weeks to keep it as fresh as possible. That's in addition to our major restocking, which we do five times a year. Every couple of weeks we also freshen it up by putting in new things like flower arrangements.
Patti Renner, Renner's Invitations Akron, OH
The polished look of the store reflects on our reputation, even if it doesn't affect the quality of our work, so we try to put our best face forward. We vacuum several times weekly, dust, and have our windows cleaned at least once a week, and clean our bathroom daily. We don't have a maintenance schedule, but most of the people who work for me are neat freaks, which is good, because I am not. Changing our displays has a cleansing effect. We recombine and remerchandise every other week to keep everything fresh looking. Fragrancing the shop is also very important. We have a "soap deli" and some aromatherapy products that we keep in a mid-to-front location so customers aren't overwhelmed when they walk in, but they definitely smell something pleasant.
Caren Sturm, The Lagniappe, West Des Moines, IA
Besides vacuuming, dusting, and polishing jewelry every day, we constantly redo our displays. The store is set up with many vignettes so we can easily change our look by changing just a few of them. Moving the merchandise around gives the store an entirely different look. Customers comment on all the new items, even though we may have only received a few new things. Our front window is redone about every three weeks. Since we have only two sales a year, old merchandise is rotated into our "sale" room. This room is updated regularly by adding new items or by taking items off the floor completely. These things, brought out again later, will look new again. We always keep fresh flowers in our vases, and have live seasonal plants on hand.
