A Dinshaw & Co

A Dinshaw & Co opened their doors in 1833 and ever since has been a brand associated with premium workmanship, quality and swift after sales service. The secret to this is cutting edge technology which ensures accurate results, a hard working experienced staff guided by Mr. Boman Bharucha a visionary with a keen business acumen, a thirst for knowledge and a passion for quality. The art of displaying merchandise to enhance its sales appeal is called “visual merchandising.” In-store visual presentation is accountable for the majority of retail purchases . Although eye wear distributors spend millions advertising their brands to consumers, the way you present their products in your optical dispensary can make or break your sales results and theirs. Effective eyewear displays meet all of these four basic shopper/patient needs. 1. Merchandise is easily seen, 2. Is touchable and accessible, 3. Has enough choices but not too many and 4. Has clear visual cues to price and value. Eyewear is different from other fashion products like clothing, shoes or handbags that have lots of mass and color. It is more like jewelry with little mass, lots of fine delicate details and subtle colors and materials that need to be seen up close to be appreciated. From a distance all frames look alike. Therefore, we have to entice the patient or shopper to come within arm’s length of the frames before they can begin to distinguish the defining details and colors. The overall look and feel of the retail area has to attract their attention and convince them that there are frame styles here worth a look. Challenge #1: High Quantities of Product to Display The average eye care practice displays 500 to 800 frames and many have well over 1,000. However, the average human being’s short-term memory can only comfortably hold about seven items at any one time. Is it any wonder that when confronted with on wall-to-wall frame boards people get overwhelmed with too many choices? Displaying hundreds of small items in ways that persuade the customer to buy is no easy task even for a seasoned display professional. The good news about eyewear display is that you can almost always do better by having less peripheral “stuff” around. The mark of a “beginner” visual merchandiser is doing and having too much: using too many props, too many show cards, crowding far too many frames into a showcase or window display. Challenge #2: Inadequate Lighting Optical dispensaries commonly suffer from inadequate lighting. Even luxury eyewear can look cheap if it is not properly lighted. Like jewelry it needs intense perfectly color-balanced white light aimed precisely at the top and front of the product. If your lighting needs improvement, adding halogen or LED track lighting can make a big difference. Display Principles for Showcases and Shelves Contrast – Choose display background materials that contrast with the frames you are showing. Never put metal frames on a mirror or other glossy surface. The frames will get lost in all the reflections. Metal frames need a richly textured surface like velvet or suede to bring out their jewelry-like qualities. Lift and Present – Always use frame pedestals, holders and other display props to lift frames above the horizontal surface of the shelf or counter and present them at the most attractive angle to the shopper. Don’t let folded frames just lie on shelves-they look dead, uninteresting and worst of all, cheap. Elements of Eyewear Presentation Rigid displays have frame holders that are equally spaced out on a panel or attached to an acrylic rod and cannot be moved. Frame boards and frame bars are the most common type of rigid frame display. Advantages: Frames stay neatly in place. It’s easy for patients to put frames back in place after try-on and easy for opticians to quickly fill empty spots as frames are sold. They are low maintenance, minimal dust collectors and work best for low to moderate priced frames. Flexible displays like shelves, tables and showcases provide space to “romance the frames” with. Use Point Of Purchase (POP) display props from vendors to show smaller groups of frames by brand or style. Advantages: Frames have higher perceived value and enhanced sales appeal because their individual style and brand gets noticed. Inventory levels can shrink and expand without telltale “empty spots.” Works best for moderate to high priced frames. There is one exception: Rimless frames show better on a black background. The easiest way to provide that background is with a black display prop. (See black house display) Mirrors are always a poor choice for display backgrounds. Mirrors absorb the light and make the frame displays appear twice as cluttered and confusing. Let your mirrors be for patients to see themselves and nothing else. Communicating Price Levels Use one-glance, merchandising techniques, to give clear visual cues to price levels. One glance into your optical dispensary should tell the patient where they could find a frame in their desired price range or quality level. Price level is communicated visually by how you display the frames. Crowd your lowest price frames together on a rotator, on frame boards, or in plastic trays kept in cabinets below displays. Show low to moderate priced frames on frame boards or frame bars attached to the wall. Intersperse some shelves among moderate frames to feature the most sought-after brands. Most Opticals benefit from a mix of both rigid and flexible displays. When an Optical has only flexible displays it conveys an atmosphere of high quality merchandise and pricing to match. With both types of display it’s easier to communicate a wide range of prices and demonstrate the ability to serve a wide range of customers. Create a distinctly different display area for your highest priced frames. Present them in locked showcases or on open shelves if theft is not a worry. Identify the designer brands and show all the pieces in the collection together. An effective optical retail environment sends a clear accurate message to customers and patients about the quality, value and prices they can expect. Whether you are looking to improve your existing optical or opening a brand new one the key to effortless merchandising is to plan the right mix of display fixtures, props and lighting before you start.