Lazy Susans, tie racks and front-store merchandising

My daughter and I were experimenting in the kitchen the other evening — cooking up what was sure to be a masterpiece. Reaching into the lazy Susan in the spice cabinet, I had a eureka moment.

To be honest, this is not the first time that this fleeting thought has crossed my mind. But it resurfaced with a vengeance when my daughter commented about the lazy Susan, “This is so cool. Everything I need is just a quick spin away from being right in front of me.”

So, imagine this idea executed in store. I’m shopping for a sleep remedy and I go to a 24-inch-wide area of the shelf labeled, “Restful Nights.” Carefully gliding the circular turntable I’m able to select from a range of remedies for my nighttime struggles. In fact, within the same amount of merchandising space, there is now room for two times or more the merchandise. This frees up shelf space, improves shopability and organizes the category more compactly. Managing the inventory and restocking the shelves may become more difficult, but increasing the productivity of the square footage could more than justify it.

Although I would not recommend this for every category and every shelf, think about those that could benefit from being grouped in such a manner. It may be the ideal way to spice up your merchandising.

While I’m on the bandwagon of organization, I had another epiphany that translates to retail. Merchandising compression hosiery is among the most difficult categories encountered. There are a number of attributes that they can be organized by, and streamlining them to make it easy for shoppers to navigate is a daunting task. It’s one of those departments that takes up too much space for the frequency that it is shopped.

To solve the problem within the hosiery category, I’ll use my closet as an example. I have too many neckties. There are holiday-themed ties, sports team-themed ties, and those worn only once because they looked better in the store than around my neck. But storing these ties is solved by a closet organization system that permits me to hook them on a sliding mechanism that recedes between my sport coats, and can easily be pulled out to expose the full array.

Now imagine this concept applied to your store. You create a shelf organization system for compression hosiery that sits alongside the shelved products and can be pulled out to expose the full range of stockings. Not only does it minimize the space required on the pegged wall, it also organizes them by size, compression percentage, or some other factor that makes shopping easier.

There you have it. Some pretty good shelf organizational ideas that already exist and simply require a bit of tweaking and reapplication to meet unsolved needs at the retail shelf.

Dave Wendland is vice president and co-owner of Hamacher Resource Group, a retail healthcare consultancy located near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He directs business development, product innovation and marketing communications activities for the company and has been instrumental in positioning HRG among the industry’s foremost thought leaders. You may contact him at (414) 431-5301 or learn more at Hamacher.com.