Super styling

Olivia Collins, visual merchandiser with home fragrance company Ashleigh & Burwood, shares her tips on making a beautifully fragranced instore display

Olivia, what’s your career journey? I studied Display Design and trained up at Burberry, The Scotch House and Liberty within their display departments. I was then employed by Harrods as a display designer where I worked until I had my family. Once my children were older I worked as a visual merchandiser for a large garden centre chain that led to my current position.

What’s most important in home fragrance display – visual or scent? Our customers know and trust us for our original English fragrances as well as our beautiful packaging. I allow the attractive packaging do the talking by keeping simple straight lines. Fragrance is of equal importance to the visual so we always offer a tester for the customer to sample.

How important is it for the display to reflect the actual scent of the products? Adding props really helps to captivate your customers and deliver the fragrance message. We have a vast array of fragrances, so whether you wish to highlight our peony fragrance in The Scented Home collection by adding artificial peony flowers in summer, or using gourds in the autumn with our Pumpkin Latte fragrance, enhancing the fragrance stories with props can be quite simple and effective.

Hoe do you go about ‘storytelling’ in visual merchandising? Think about your bestselling fragrances, your customer demographic and product location. This is all vital in ensuring you benefit in sales. Keep collections together within a fixture so that the customer can shop it easily and understand each range. This will allow a story to be told that will be easily understood by shoppers.

How do you encourage customers to interact with products in a display? It’s vital to have testers for all of our products, especially our Lamp Fragrances. Our Lamp Fragrance scent is only released when the product is in use, so it is really important that one of our 10ml fragrance testers is nearby for the customer to smell before they buy.

How would you suggest retailers could display spring/summer launches effectively - on a budget! Our new limited edition Japanese collection is the perfect summer addition to The Scented Home range. Diffusers and candles in decorative packaging really make a visual statement. These products would work well merchandised with some simple modern houseplants to enhance the display. We also have POS for this range that’s important in delivering the fragrance message to the customer. This provides understanding of the fragrance notes in each product. These are available free of charge with an order.

Your top three tips for a retailer who’s new to home fragrance - how can they display it best, again on a budget? 1) Cross merchandising. Pick out a few

home fragrance products together with complementary products from elsewhere in your store to create an appealing lifestyle look. 2) Make use of the free POS. Use POS materials that are provided, especially fragrance testers. 3) Get creative with display furniture for a unique look. Odd tables can be used to create height difference and interest. Charity shops can be a cheap place to find props and display furniture.