rdwarelhousewares

If you have several price levels and/ or brands of chain saws,for example, display them together, so the customer can compare, touch, feel and ponder. Afiix descriptive literature to the display. Gondola end cap displays crammed full of literature help.

lUith expensive ircms especially, be certain they are securely fastened to the display, so shoplifters don't make off with the merchandise. Rip-off artists come equipped with cutting tools, so make sure the items are really chained down.

Take care that your pricing is crystal clear when you have a good/ better/best selection of merchandise on display. Nothing confuses the customer faster than if the "cheap" product costs more than the lowest priced item, or at least as he or she sees it.

Study traffic flow before you finalize on a spot for fast moving items. Take a tip from the grocer who always puts the bread ond milk at the back of the store, knowing that everyone wants them and thus are exposed to more of the inventory on the way back to get what they came in for.

Build out from the front of the cash registers or terminals so that you'll have ample room for those high profit impulse items. Stress to cashiers to ask "is there anything else?" so the customer can be reminded to pick up the impulse item they've been idly viewing.

Despite what a vendor may $y, group products by product categories, not vendor, unless he has some sensational reason to make an exception. The customer doesn't care about vendors, he iust wants all the chickens with the rest of the chickens and all the eggs with the eggs.

Get after department heads to make sure the shelves are stocked full. Nothing makes a store look worse than great gaps on the shelves. Empty shelves result in empty shop- ping bags, purchases than never happened. Each sales person must somehow find time to get back-up inventory into place.

Mops, brooms, dusters and other cleaning products can be effectively showcased by hanging them on a wall, with the buckets and related items clustered neatly next to them. As always, make certain all are priced and identified.

After a selection of grouped merchandise is on the shelf, stand back and take a look. How is it for color? Are the signs easily read? Are there any logical questions the customers might ask that the display doesn't answer?

Copies of your current newspaper ad should be placed in a conspicuous place, so customers can review them for bargains, leaders. Get extra tears from the newspaper so you'll have enough. Pile supplements around, too; cTtstomers often don't bring their mailed copy.

Cross aisle merchandising is a technique used increasingly as studies have shown it a better method of presentation than forcing the customer to walk around to the other side ofthe gondola to see the balance of the merchandise. Are you using it? Effectively?

If a bin tag is missing, and the bin is empty, the customer will never know you had that particular item and may well go elsewhere to ftnd it. Keep tags and other identifications so they know you are only temporaily out of an item. Better yet, ftll those bins.

Story at a Glance

Use these practical suggestions to increase sales in your hardware and housewares depart- ments. better organization, display and signing can do wonders in getting out the profits you want from those departments.

Your checkout counter can become a special Checkout Area. Add a shingled roof over the registers or terminals, cluster shelves and load them up with impulse or other popular items.

Nostalgia still sells and old fashioned patterns and replica lines can be hypoed by use of "an old-timey look" to your display. Inexpensive wallpaper with a Gay 90s theme can be used to create a mood and atmosphere to tie in with the good old days' look.

Store services for hardware and housewares items such as repair, decorating help, delivery, wrapping and the like should be prominently mentioned in departmental signs. Thank you signs at department and main exits are another good touch.

Color can be critical in moving housewares. Background colors in the displays and surrounding wallpaper can move merchandise when properly coordinated. Stress yellow and light, bright greens, which are replacing the older golds and avocado colors. Earth tones still retain popularity.

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."'j rth ,qqal Heusc{Fares Expori- h chiclro.

? HE American hourwares indusI try has fust clored its books on a rccord year thEt mw isteil sales zoom wull pfft the $22 billi,on.mark ln 1976.

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Wfuy' €ccoidurg to Dolph Zapfel,

. *hurnpiror ,Mfitifapturors Asocia"

''' t*tdi vdrich stages the key national . : .rnflrhtdfc€ for housewares overy six

' ' 49nrht, *A lo$-minute Christrnas shopping " ---_-----t__ - -F{_-s . fllrgo pretty well clearod out retailcr's inyentori6s," he said, 'land they were rcrdy to $tock their shelves again with all kinds of colorful and welldesigned home-use products that refleet the creativity and ingenuity of America's housewares makers in satisfying consumer wants,"

Zapfel reported that 1976 also ended on an upbeat note for manufacturers. He recounted a recent NHMA industry study that indicated laat year would prove to be one of th4 best years sver. The survey showed manufacturer estimates of 1976 sales prcjccted the most positive industry -out}ook reported in a number of years.

For example; more than a third of housewares manufacturers expected .ttlair 1976 sales to exceed $5 million, rwhilo oilly little more than a quarter of thom had 1975 sales as high as that. .Sirnilarly, wtnle 27Vo reported 1975 sales of less than $l million, fewer tharr 2Vo of manufacturers expected last year's sales to end up in that lower range.

One m€asure of the industry's positive outlook for the new yeiu, according to Tapfel, is the record number of exhibitors who participated in the NHMA Expoeition. He reported a total of 1572 exldbitors with displays fitling to capacity Chicago's gant lakefront exhibition center.

'Tlundreds of additional m{mufacturet *ere unable to b€ accofii" modated," he said, "even though we set up extra exhibit booths in the lobby and a restaurant area of Mc Cormick Place for the first time, in order to handle as many as possible."