On Wednesday Carmela and I took our planned trip to Liverpool. From our visit we wanted to:
Find further christmas window inspiration.
General visual merchandising inspiration.
Find out how other boutiques vm.
Look at how vm is used to promote brands.
Liverpool
First we went to Matthew Street which is where several boutiques are situated within a small mall. We visited a couple of boutiques which had really good visual merchandising but failed to take pictures of once of these due to security. However i managed to get a few pictures of the vm in the jewellery shop which we both really liked, using different props to hang products from walls and interesting vintage furniture to display products.
We went into the Vivienne Westwood within this mall and found an entirely different atmosphere to the shop in Nottingham which is very Kitsch. We much preferred the calm and relaxed vibe in the Liverpool VW and also the variety in products. All the decor and VM in VW is based around the woman herself. As Carmela and I have discussed before about using Bawtry's history as a selling point for Robinsons we found that the VM in VW related to this. Using a persona to sell products.
We then entered Cricket. I was very shocked and disappointed in how the store was laid out and how the products were displayed. The walls looked as though they could have done with a good paint job and as you can see in the pictures from the post below, the bags which were all in excess of £600, were just strewn across tables with no care given whatsoever. The reduced Loboutin shoes were cast aside as if now worthless and all of this took place within the first few metres of the shop which just gave me a bad opinion to begin with. The same theme continued as expected throughout the rest of Cricket, lack of care for the garments was displayed as dresses were just plonked onto tables after a customer had tried them on. Wang bags piled on top of one another and Balenciaga bags crammed into tiny spaces. I was appalled! On the flip side, the staff were lovely and friendly and happy to help, but that is pretty much the only positive i can give to Cricket.
Manchester
First stop was Selfridges. There was about ten windows to photograph, all in the post below. I still have mixed feelings about these windows. The style is quite reminiscent of the Liberty's 2009 Christmas window which i posted earlier, but done in a more Kitsch way. It is fun and imaginative but i would have liked something more slick from Selfridges. However, things started to look up inside with innovative VM, as pictured in the post below, was amusing and convincing. In Selfridges, I particularly liked the use of their 'Gift Tables' - a great idea which Robinsons could use, as well as huge labels pointing out what they thought would be great gifts - another idea for Robinsons. We were also inspired by Selfridges and came up with the idea that Robisnons could do an outfit of the week for the Christmas/New Year season, by dressing a mannequin in a certain outfit and heavily pushing those products to customers, perhaps with a money off incentive if the entire outfit is bought?
Next we headed to Harvey Nichols, I'd already seen the window in the Leeds store and the Manchester store was similar if not identical. Again, i would have expected something more engaging than just a very tacky, 90's Christmas window from them, but perhaps that's just the trend this year? In store decorations were extremely poor with hardly any reference to it being the Christmas season anywhere other than a few pieces of tinsel dotted here and there.
Overall, despite my disappointment in the window displays of several shops which i am usually fascinated by, i found the trip extremely useful as it gave me belief that Carmela and I can do something very special with Robinsons window. Regardless of space, I think the window we create will rival that of Harvey Nicks and Selfridges as i believe we have a clear vision that will really compliment the Robinsons brand.
