When stores fall silent they leave money on the table, shelf, or rounder. They let their customers decide everything about their goods: what features to notice, what constitutes a collection, where good/better/best reside, why something minor may be interesting or will be overlooked, and what constitutes the value proposition. And when retailers do this, there are often three standard reasons:
- We can’t afford it. With margins already pressed, the pennies, dimes, and dollars that signage, endcaps, and in-aisle features may cost are seen only as bottom line depth charges, rather than an essential fuel for sales.
- We don’t have the manpower. Having cut staff in each of the last three or four quarters, Store Ops barely has a crew capable of getting merchandise out of the backroom on time, let alone deal with transient, time-consuming signage programs whose importance has never been hinted at, let alone explained.
- We sell merchandise, not signs. Usually this objection comes from Merchandising and it can, at its roots, hide a couple of frightening lacks. Namely, that there is nothing special about the items in store—no proprietary theme, no function or feature stories, no seasonal echo of what the brand exists to express—nothing that differentiates this delivery from what the merchant across the street sells.
The business answer to all of these objections is that no retailer can afford to leave customers to form their own impressions. Selling is what stores are about—not just displaying goods and keeping aisles neat. Without a sales staff large enough to sell individual customers on individual items, signage must take up the slack and sell, sell, sell.
--Timothy Cohrs
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