Tips For Merchandising Retail Holiday Gift Sets

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Holiday shopping creates a feeling of urgency. It's truly a unique time to entice shoppers with creatively packaged items for this particular time of year. Gift sets are a popular choice during the holiday season because they are the perfect solution for customers who don’t have the time to shop or who have no idea what to get someone. The ideal gift set should look like a lot of effort and thought was put into the present. It should solve a major problem for the customer and provide excellent value to the recipient.

The weeks leading up to Christmas especially are the most important time in the retail industry. Merchandising your holiday gift sets correctly is essential to driving holiday sales and increasing your return on investment. We’ve put together a list of tips to help you make your gift sets more visually appealing. 

Tip 1 - Pay Attention To The Packaging

It’s hard not to judge a book by its cover, and product packaging is no exception. The packaging is the first thing a potential buyer sees when they look at an item in your store. The customer forms his or her first impression, good or bad, by how you package and display the product.

For gift sets, the packaging is even more critical. Not only does the packaging need to impress your customers, but it also must impress your customers’ gift recipients! 

Choose your gift set packaging carefully. The packaging affects your marketing effectiveness,and it must also protect the contents.

Consider the material and tools you should use. For example, using a Steinel heat gun may be a good idea for enclosing heavier gift sets, such as candles or bottled liquids, whereas tape is probably an economical alternative for lighter gift sets containing cards or small clothing items.

Tip 2 – Use Nostalgia To Trigger Sales 

Creating feelings of nostalgia has a significant impact on shoppers. Most people envision an era gone by when they think of Christmas — old Victorian street lamps, busy market stalls, women in hand muffs ice skating at a local park and Christmas cards hung above a crackling fireplace.

Use nostalgia to promote your gifts sets. Think about incorporating something old-fashioned into your overall holiday sales theme to elicit sales.

Create gift sets using nostalgic products, such as retro candy, toys or video systems and games.

According to Fortune magazine, gifts that trigger a memory or inspire a child to try something from another decade offer a depth that general gifts cannot.According to a study by the Journal of Consumer Research, nostalgia led shoppers to pay more money for products.

Tip 3 – Pick The Right Products

Selecting the right products to go into your gift sets is just as important as the picking the appropriate packaging. Displaying the right product will not only help sell more of a product, but it may also increase the sales of your other lines.

All gift sets need substance, and hiding a lack of substance behind pretty packaging will not help you make a sale. 

Luckily, choosing the right combination of products is easy once you know your customer base and the demographics of the gift recipients. Try to center on a theme for each gift set to narrow down the decision process.

Retailers like Bath & Body Works or Williams-Sonoma are excellent examples of companies who sell plenty of holiday gift sets, whether it's a set of body wash, lotion and soap, or a barbecue kit.

Tip 4 – Location Matters

Most retail stores pay close attention to their store design. Placing products at strategic locations throughout a store will help increase sales.

You may have noticed large retail stores like Gap place their cash registers at the center of the store, so customers will not think about spending money when they enter the store and spend more. Stores like TJ Maxx line their cash register aisles with walls of product, so customers are tempted to put them into their cart while they wait for their turn at the checkout.

Therefore, choosing the right location to place your gift sets can help you sell them before the holiday season ends. If you have a lot of larger gift sets, consider setting them up in a pretty display at the front of the store so you can place them in the spotlight. For gift sets that are smaller in size, consider displaying them near the cash register so customers can easily access them as they wait for their turn at the checkout.

As they say, it's all about Location, Location, Location!

Tip 5 – Hype It On Social Media 

In today’s increasingly connected world, a social media presence is key to ensuring the success of your business. Companies big and small join sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to promote their products and update their customers.

If you are already familiar with social media, you will probably know about the different methods you can use to promote your products. This includes buying paid ads in the form of banner ads, video ads, or pop ads.

You can also choose to send your gift sets to popular influencers to help get the word out during the holiday season. Or ask clients to mention a certain Instagram post to receive a percentage off their holiday retail purchases. 

Do your research on how to best exploit social media marketing and social media influencers. If you are unfamiliar with how best to use social media, consider hiring a media manager for some guidance and expertise.

Tip 6 – Group Your Gifts 

Place similar products together to encourage impulse purchases. The way you group your products can jump start shoppers’ imagination on how the products can be used.

Arrange by product use or display by color. Never make a monochromatic display, rather use related or contrasting colors because color has the power to evoke emotions and influence how your product is perceived.

Add gift sets to the section to up sell retail merchandise. For a few dollars, more customers will typically purchase a beautifully presented gift set rather than buying the products individually.

Tip 7 – Light it Up

Light makes merchandise pop and shapes the atmosphere of your store. The three lighting techniques are primary, accent and ambient. Primary is the overall illumination, accent is lighting specific display and ambient plays off shadows to create a dramatic effect.

A recent study discovered that sales increased by 2% when dynamic lighting was installed to highlight holiday products. That may not seem like a lot, but it adds up and impacts your retail profit margins positively. But use it sparsely and be thoughtful about which products you want to highlight.

Retailer Holiday Gift Set Merchandise Conclusion

Follow some of these terrific merchandise management tips and your retail sales will skyrocket during the holiday season and throughout the rest of the year! Now head to your brick and mortar store and get merchandising!



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I hope you enjoyed this article about how to focus on the forth quarter to boost retail store sales with merchandising and gift sets.

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