My Top Christmas Tips For Creating Effective Display’s & Visual Merchandising 

Creating theatre and atmosphere within your Christmas shop will always help to engage your customer and create that Christmas experience all shoppers are looking for.

Take inspiration from some of London’s top department stores, who create magical theatre within their displays by using lighting, graphics and props.

Create a strong theme which your customer can follow/ engage with throughout their journey within your store, consider incorporating your theme consistently within your POS, windows, in store displays and digital content.

Create height and visual impact with your displays by using Christmas themed props, textures and innovatively hanging merchandise. Liberty London is a great example of a store who implement this effectively every year within their atrium space. Try using the key VM principles of symmetrical, asymmetrical, repetition, or alternation compositions to create an eye-catching impact. Using props such as coloured hat boxes, which can be tied with ribbon or wrapping up empty packaging – make great ways to create height within displays as well as adding that Christmas theatre.

A Christmas themed hot spot / focal area positioned near to your main entrance of your store creates customer interest and showcases the Christmas merchandise/ theme showcased within your windows. This area can be changed approx. every four weeks leading up to the Christmas period. Refreshing this space regularly will help to maintain your customer’s interest.

When merchandising Christmas decorations, styling Christmas trees in a full range of co-ordinated decorations can help to inspire the customer on how to recreate this theme at home. Then create that “see it, like it, buy it” concept by merchandising and positioning the full package of decorations next to the styled tree. Link selling opportunities can also be created by merchandising strong Christmas colour stories together on your fixturing. Colour themed and lifestyle dressing can help to inspire the customer as they shop and lead to additional sales.

Please also find my article featured within Creoate’s Blog post, supporting Independent Retailers with Christmas trends and tips for 2024

Christmas Trends 2024: Retail Experts Share Their Top Predictions

All photos and copy are copyright of Sarah Manning,VMC.