WHAT’S IN STORE – VISUAL MERCHANDISING

Merchandising solutions: Lifestyle merchandising

By Amanda Carr WGSN 28.01.08

As retailers hear gloomy predictions about poor sales for 2008 and the end of fast fashion, Pompei A.D. in New York has some merchandising ideas to help engage consumers in a more relationship-based purchasing process.

Pompei A.D. is the creative service company responsible for designing stores for Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, where lifestyle merchandising is the focus of store layout.

Creative director Ron Pompei is clear that cultivating a more meaningful relationship with consumers results in better sales and more loyal customers. Pompei's buzzwords are commerce, culture and community, and he tells WGSN: "You have to have the commerce, it has to be culturally welded and that will bring community." Content rich and culturally relevant

Today's consumer, says Pompei, is somebody who is looking for product that is going to elevate their lifestyle and bring something a little deeper to their lives.

For lifestyle merchandising, retailers need to become curators of the perfect life for their customers. Pompei explains: "It's not just about one piece of cool merchandise that looks good, it's all the other cool bits of merchandise that piece is connected to. So lifestyle merchandising is really putting forward a matrix of choices that are given value by the fact that they have been edited down from a much bigger selection and are linked together through lifestyle relevance."

He continues: "If you're a customer in a pharmacy with 42 brands of toothpaste, you don't want to choose from 42, you want the 12 they believe in on the racks. Retailers need to edit an already over-messaged environment down to a manageable range that has some intrinsic value rather than something you're just going to move through like fast food."
Pompei thinks that fashion would benefit from acquiring more cultural relevance. "Content rich product," he continues, "with a story behind it or with a strong provenance has more cultural relevance. When you buy fast fashion there's no real expression of creativity, you're just getting a knock off of a knock off."

Pompei thinks that fashion would benefit from acquiring more cultural relevance. "Content rich product," he continues, "with a story behind it or with a strong provenance has more cultural relevance. When you buy fast fashion there's no real expression of creativity, you're just getting a knock off of a knock off."

Making intelligent choices around acquisitions

So can a retailer "lifestyle merchandise" just any product? Pompei is confident you can. "We're using this word 'lifestyle', but what we're really talking about is making intelligent choices around acquisitions. And these acquisitions are more intelligent when they have relationships with other acquisitions.
"Ten years ago, if you walked into a party dressed in head-to-toe Chanel, you'd have seemed sophisticated; now that same look would seem bland and indicate you had no personality, no creativity. Brands and retailers should express themselves more individualistically."

Knowing your customer and promoting niche

Lifestyle merchandising means really understanding your customer in order to make narrow-and-deep decisions on stock. Pompei continues: "Consumers can buy anything at any time from many different venues now, so they're going to start asking 'does this product mean anything to my lifestyle? To my values? To me or the community that I want to belong to?' You've got to know who she is and share her attitudes.

Forget about mass market - it's all about niche." "Big box and mass merchandising simply doesn't work any more, hence the rise in viral advertising, pop ups, and community sites. Retailers are learning that they have to talk to the lifestyle and the values of groups and not just the demographics."

Fixtures and fittings

Pompei also states that, rather than starting from scratch with new fixtures and fittings, lifestyle merchandising can utilise what retailers already have: "It's about adding another layer," he claims. "Reformat what you've got. You're wrapping extra product around each acquisition to tell a story. Mix it up a bit and forget the idea that people are going to just come in, buy something and walk out the door.

"There's a lot of room to take what you have and represent it to make it seem much more valuable. You have to create something that people feel they can step into, that they are playing a character in a story you're telling."

Pompei demonstrates how successful this can be by explaining that, in Anthropologie, the average dwell time is a staggering 88 minutes. "With Anthropologie there are no straight lines," he continues. "We make customers imagine they're on a journey through the landscape of the store, making their own selections, which allows them to co-author the brand."

The importance of visual merchandisers

Visual merchandisers have to step out of the shadows, says Pompei, as they become crucial to creating a good story on the floor. He continues: "A lot of brands use visual merchandising as a corporate consistency barometer, with planograms and style books to ensure everything is the same everywhere because success has always been equated with brand consistency.

"But creative people need some leeway, retailers need to allow them to create something that's relevant in their space, in that neighbourhood, in that country. They will be able to do that better in situ than in a corporate office somewhere." We couldn't agree more.

Lifestyle merchandising in brief

-The three Cs - culture, commerce and community - are the corner stones of lifestyle merchandising, says Ron Pompei. "You have to have the commerce, it has to be culturally welded and that will bring community."

-Edit the product message to a manageable range that has intrinsic value, then make it tell a story on the shop floor.

-Allow customers to make intelligent choices around acquisitions by offering a relevant matrix of choices.

-Know your customer, understand her values and share her attitudes, then develop the niche aspect.

-Reformat existing fixtures to give more value to what you've got, mix things up and link product together.

-Visual merchandisers need to be allowed to create their environments at a local level. They are crucial to creating a good story.

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