Innovative retail merchandise display ideas for your retail business. We’re sure you have noticed the sudden boom in popularity of new innovations in food display and preparation. The Retail Industry was once conservative and relied on consistency to sell its message of clean, safe, tasty and filling food. The reality now is that food producers and retailers are now coming up with fresh, exciting and unconventional ways to attract customers or diners. Who are now hungrier to discover more about where their food comes from and how it can be used. Do you manage a company cafeteria, have a retail produce store or own your own chain of restaurants?

Mills Display is at the forefront of creating customised food display products.

As well as having an international network of suppliers who can help create novel ways to help create and display everything from produce and individual ingredients to finished dishes. If you can dream it, we will help bring it to life. For more inspiration about how Mills Display can help you prepare and present innovative food displays, download a catalogue, email us or talk to one of our salespeople on Live Chat.

In the meantime, here are nine inventive ways in which businesses around the world are changing the way we prepare, present, display and serve up food.

1. Storefront Preparation Retail Merchandise Display Ideas

Gone are the days when you could just place row upon row of items on your shelves and expect customers to come in. So customers could choose solely on price or habit. Having in-store demonstrations is a start when it comes to introducing new products or ways to prepare familiar foodstuffs. Nothing beats bringing your deli staff out front or promoting your foodie staff as authorities or experts. Customers can get advice from your staff, learn about new products or techniques, and see how fresh your produce is while also having demonstrations of how to handle the food.

2. Smaller / Shallower Plates, Trays and Bowls for Retail Merchandise Displays.

Whether on salad bars or meat, fish and deli counters, customers prefer to think their food is being prepared for them personally – this means having to produce and prepare smaller displays and then restock them more frequently. In New Zealand, especially, this is effective because we don’t like the idea of over-production and waste and it also means customers end up with fresher produce.

3. Menu Themed Displays and Customised Recipes

Your customers are likely more time-poor now than they have ever been, and you can help take the element of choice out of their food shopping by creating displays which are tied in with specific menus. The success of online menu-orientated food delivery services shows how people are willing to try new ideas if they are shown how to use unfamiliar products and techniques – so why not combine your menu-themed displays with customised recipes?

4. Choice Architecture For Retail Merchandise Display Ideas

This new buzz-phrase has come out of America and refers to ways in which you can design your store or restaurant displays so that you promote healthier options. There’s no need to stop retailing the less healthy foods, it’s just that consumers are more and more responding to businesses which help them choose healthier lifestyles without having strong messages rammed down their throats.

5. Use Stories to sell Retail Merchandise Display Ideas

This is now becoming the norm in all forms of retail and marketing. Your beef isn’t just from a cow – it’s from a cow that lived on a particular farm in a particular part of New Zealand, grazed on a specific type of feed and was transported to your shop by a specific deliveryman. Once you have the story-telling technique down to a fine art, you’ll find that your store displays start to reflect that more organic, deliberate and informed feel.

6. Treat vegetables like meat for Retail Merchandise Display Ideas

Not only are we told that we should have a couple of meals each week in which we don’t eat meat because it’s healthier for us, but more and more research is showing that intensive meat production is increasingly harmful for the environment. This has led to many food retailers and providers to promote vegetables in the way they used to promote meat – from having rotisseries packed with roasting veggies, to promoting menus and recipes in which veggies are the central ingredient.

7. Create a buzz via social media for your Retail Merchandise

Your store doesn’t have to be just a place where people shop – judicious use of social media can turn it into a community hub where people meet to swap ideas and where you, as a business owner, are an authority on the items and produce you stock. This is ideal when you want to introduce new lines because it means you can prepare your customers and build up anticipation around the new item’s arrival.

8. Personalised service

In its most extreme form, personalised food retail has created businesses which blend individualised, customised ground coffee, or which pair food-box subscriptions with music compilations supposedly chosen to accompany the cooking process! You don’t have to go that far – but being able understand your customers’ individual dietary needs and preferences as well as being able to help them find new and innovative ways to dine has become an integral part of food retail.

Also read

https://millsdisplay.co.nz/2017/10/6-tips-effective-store-layouts/

Enquire Now with Mills Display

For any enquires or to place your order please contact our friendly Customer Services Team on 09 634 5962 or send us an email to sales@millsdisplay.co.nz. Use our online contact form below for further information. Follow us on Facebook and Google My Business for our latest products and NZ Retail updates.

Do not forget you can also Live Chat in real time to Customer Services with any questions.

Effective store layouts you need to know. The science of Effective Store Layouts is important. Create the perfect environment for your customers with our 6 tips to effective store design. Customers react both consciously and unconsciously to the way your retail store is set out. How your retail counters, display cabinets, stands and racks, aisles, point-of-sale counters and shelf displays are arranged mean even the slightest change can make the difference between a sale and a lost customer.

Six tips for creating effective store layouts for your shop.

1. Have your store layout reflect your business.

If customers are searching for everyday, regular purchases then the usual grid system used by grocery stores worldwide is perfect because it creates a familiar atmosphere, but if you’re pushing impulse purchases or asking people to test and handle items (such as phones or IT equipment) then a more free-flowing layout works better.

2. Minimise barriers between customers and sales staff.

The old-fashioned days of having store clerks behind counters are long gone and customers need to feel that they are being served by people loaded with information and advice. Make room on the shop floor for sales assistants to be able to browse alongside customers to create a busy but unclogged atmosphere.

3. Use innovation to create an eye-catching entrance.

Your front window might get passers-by to stop but it’s your front door display which tends to get them into the store. This takes clever use of signage, creative thinking in terms of displays and smart choices when it comes to displaying stock. Think about your store’s “narrative” – what do you stand for and how do you want your customers to perceive you? Are you all about price, or is service important to you, are you primed for a specific seasonal purchase, or are you all about variety? Now go and tell that story where the customer is going to see it first.

4. Ease your customers into the buying experience.

Typically, customers turn right as they enter a shop and tend not to get too involved in displays right in front of the main entrance. There’s therefore no point merchandising straight away in what’s known as a “decompression zone”, but you can still guide them subconsciously around the store by placing attention-grabbing displays on the right, and then at intervals around the store to keep them travelling in the right direction.

5. Give customers room to breathe.

Personal space is very important for customers (unless you’re purposefully creating the urgent atmosphere of a new year’s day or “Black Friday” sale). Shoppers are likely to avoid cramped aisles so it’s important to create space.

6. Make security a priority.

It’s important that all shelving – even temporary store displays – don’t create an environment where you can lose stock to thieves or which pose a potential risk to shoppers.

Also read about retail store design

https://millsdisplay.co.nz/2015/02/retail-store-design-top-3-ways/

Enquire Now with Mills Display

For any enquires or to place your order please contact our friendly Customer Services Team on 09 634 5962 or send us an email to sales@millsdisplay.co.nz. Use our online contact form below for further information. Follow us on Facebook and Google My Business for our latest products and NZ Retail updates.

Do not forget you can also Live Chat in real time to Customer Services with any questions.

NZ retail stores update September 2017. Having been in retail for many decades, I cannot help but visit stores and consume retail, even when not officially working. On a recent trip to South Africa I was therefore compelled to see the new developments in Johannesburg, Pretoria (Menlyn Park) and Durban (Umhlanga). These are all major new retail developments in a country known for its strong retailers. My first observation, before delving into store product ranges – and trying to look inconspicuous as there is staff everywhere – was the fantastic ‘space’ that had been created in many of the new stores and malls.

Retail Shopping in 2017 is about “The whole Experience”

Much of the talk around Australian retail at present is about using ‘Experience’ to combat the threat of stagnant sales and in particular the coming Amazon tsunami.

I have not seen many great new fit-outs or new concepts in the newer Australian malls. I am not sure how the costs of shopping fitting here equate to the costs in South Africa, but there is no doubt South African specialty stores are breaking new ground by creating exciting new concepts in ‘good experience’ space and with design elements that are fresh and pleasant.

Is it that our shopping centre landlords have been too inflexible in enforcing a standard set of criteria, which does not encourage ‘out of the box’ thinking and design? Or have we had it too good for too long and become complacent in giving our customers the pleasure of a good experience through design and service?

One of the stand out retailers growing fast is Old Town Italy…

One of the stand out retailers who is growing at a really good pace and expanding throughout South Africa and the world, is a concept named Old Town Italy. It is a large footprint cafe and restaurant that also houses a bakery, a top rate deli, butcher, cheese monger, chocolate shop, wine and cocktail bar plus many interesting collections of home wares and gifting.

So apart from serving delightful, fresh meals, casual dining and snacks with great coffee, it provides a wonderful array of merchandise that is presented in a bold and authentic manner.

It also makes me wonder if our authorities are too stringent in how they allow us to present foodstuff. When one thinks of all the wonderful food experiences available throughout European streets, markets, stores and stalls, are we not too clinical to be authentic?

There are displays and creations evident everywhere in the new South African malls that make for great ‘dwell time’ as well as creating an environment that encourages us to open our wallets. New and inspiring designs of even Australian and other international retailers seem more adventurous than in Australia. These include Cotton On, Starbucks, Typo, and L’Occtane to name a few!

It seems to me that we have fallen behind in the design of good retail space…

It seems to me that we have fallen behind in the design of good retail space and if we are to maintain a first class ‘experience’ in bricks and mortar, then we need to increase our adventurousness, our spend and our tolerance of both clinical and compliance standards. The popularity of farmers markets on weekends should be proof that we are tired of stereotype malls and many people are looking for something new. With little interest in conformity and clinical stores without service that pleases all the senses.

So if our bricks and mortar stores are to survive the Amazon invasion, we need to create a level of excitement, experience and enjoyment that brings people back into space that they enjoy being in…if you feel that your retail space is not market leading, then the reason for customers to visit you is diminished!

Can you afford for consumers to be bored with your ‘space’ and experience?

September 7, 2017 Inside Retail NZ

Enquire Now with Mills Display

For any enquires or to place your order please contact our friendly Customer Services Team on 09 634 5962 or send us an email to sales@millsdisplay.co.nz. Use our online contact form below for further information.

Do not forget you can also Live Chat in real time to Customer Services with any questions.