Visual Merchandising workshop
Council recently engaged a Visual Merchandising expert to help a number of small businesses in Manly activate and transform their retail spaces to create an amazing customer experience. As part of the program businesses learnt how to increase customer foot traffic and ultimately increase sales. Watch the wrap up video and listen to some of the testimonials received from the retailers.
Video text transcript
Natalie Coulter, Visual Mechanising Expert:
Hi my name is Natalie Coulter and I'm a retail designer, visual merchandising and styling educator. I'm working with Northern Beaches Council to help retailers in Manly increase foot traffic and ultimately increase sales. I wanted to be involved in this program because it ticks all the boxes and it endorses so much of what I teach. While retail continues to evolve and customer behaviour changes one thing remains constant, the desire for impactful engaging visual experiences that make lasting impressions, and the shop window is your cheapest form of advertising. It's not only the face of your store but it's one of the most important elements so let's go inside and have a look and hear from some of the retailers on how I’ve helped them improve their looks to improve their books.
Milly MacManus, Budgy Smuggler:
I wanted to participate in this program so that I could benefit the store and educate myself. It was an opportunity that I didn't want to bypass and these opportunities don't come about all the time so it was really something that I wanted to grab hold of. Some techniques and learnings that I’ve learnt from the course were taking the vibe onto the street really giving people that budgy feeling before they've even entered the store and some flat lays so I’m really looking forward to getting some time to do those. I’d like to say to the other Manly retailers was it was a great opportunity to meet everyone and it'd be awesome to keep the Manly retail community growing.
Megan Hook, Lifeline:
When we were offered the opportunity from the Council to take part in this program we were delighted. We always look for opportunities at Lifeline Northern Beaches to improve our retail stores and when I did a bit of investigation on Natalie and the program she just had such fabulous international experience that we couldn't pass it up. It was absolutely a great opportunity. What Natalie really helped our team with is customer experience and absolute focus on customer experience and the five senses so she helped us focus on the front windows to make sure they were absolutely perfect. When you entered the store that was the first thing you saw. What did the store smell like? What did it sound like? What was the ambience inside? And all those things fed into an improved customer experience which was great. The help and the information that she was giving us was really relevant. Grab it with both hands it's a fabulous opportunity that the Northern Beaches Council offered us. Natalie is brilliant it's really high quality information so thank you, big thank you and yes do it.
Natalie Coulter, Visual Merchandising Expert:
What I've enjoyed about this program the most is that it's ticked all the boxes and it's been wonderful to help the Manly retailers get the foot traffic through the door and also on their websites for online sales during these difficult times.
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