Forward-thinking garden centers are dedicated space to "outdoor room" types of displays. These setups are similar to what you might see in a Pottery Barn store, for example, where products and furniture are combined to create a sort of sample room. In this vein, some garden centers are setting up displays with garden furniture and garden décor and plants mixed together to create a complete outdoors room effect. The related question is:

"We've been inspired to set up two complete outdoor room displays at our garden center — one inside the main building, and one in our outdoor sales area. We want to help customers envision the possibilities for the own home gardens. The displays will include outdoor furniture and garden décor, plus plants and pots. How much square footage would you recommend dedicating to the indoor and outdoor inspirational displays? Should we avoid going over a certain percentage of the overall square footage of the selling area, for example? What are some ways we can maximize these outdoor room displays given limited space?"

Let's start by clearly identifying the purpose of these displays. From my perspective there are two main purposes. One is to show-off the selection in the most appealing atmosphere. Regardless of how attractive they may be, when choosing products to be sold in your nursery, good buyers should be making decisions with themes in mind not just buying individual products or product lines. The themes may be based around a color palette, seasons, holidays, interior design trends, specific products, product lines, etc. By making the entire display attractive, each of the individual products looks better and the overall effect helps the customer envision how these products might look in their homes. This visual stimulation can get the customer's creative juices flowing and in some cases the entire display will be adopted as-is by less inventive customers. The bottom line is that a good display of this type helps the customer to make a decision. Remember, you're not just selling the products, your selling a lifestyle.

The second purpose of a display is to encourage add-on sales. These are purchases beyond what the customer may have intended to spend when they entered the nursery. It is not unusual for a customer to fall in love with and focus on one product and not think through the use of the item in such a way that it will lead to additional purchases. The display can encourage expanded thinking that will lead to add-on sales. For example, the customer may love a pot in the display and, if it were not part of a display, be ready to just buy the pot. If the pot is part of a room display, however, they may notice how the colors in the pot are picked up by the placemats on a table, or the seat cushions on a chair, or how the shape of the pot is reflected in the lamp or light shade, leading to additional purchases. Most customers are not as creative as your buyers and these displays substitute for some customer right brain inadequacies.

Before we move on to the more specific (left brain) aspects of your question, I just want to suggest you also consider building a display focused on bringing the "outdoors in" not just an outdoor room display. Although perhaps a bit less fussy than previous years, the "outdoors in" trend is still popular and may gain strength if gas prices force people to stay home more and reduce trips to the great outdoors.

Before we proceed lets define the difference between "merchandising " and "displays". Merchandising is where you stock all the products you sell and from which the customer makes their choices. Displays are product vignettes or stories built around a theme with the sole purpose of stimulating the customer's imagination and generating additional sales. Obviously, a store with only displays will not have sufficient, easily accessible, product from which the customer can pick. Equally poor for generating revenue is a store that is fully merchandised with no space to show-off or focus the customer's attention on selected products.

I don't think there is any standard rule about the relationship between the size of the retail area and the amount of that area devoted to displays. The main focus of the retail area still has to be on the merchandising of product and getting as much product as possible as conveniently accessible to the customer as possible. The primary balancing act is between the loss of merchandising space and the sales-generating use of display space.

Given a choice, I'd rather see multiple smaller displays than one large one. Since displays are effective in moving customers from one place in the store to another, as they move from display to display, several displays can be used to draw the customer deep into the retail space.

Twenty-five to thirty-six square feet is enough space to build an effective room-type display that includes one or two pieces of furniture and garden-oriented accouterments. The effectiveness of any such display is greatly enhanced if it includes a wall that allows the display to include some vertical space for sconces, a wall mounted water feature, original art or prints, etc. The use of a wall increases the display area without increasing the square footage committed to the display. Although I'd still rather see four separate displays, a square space of 144 square feet divided into four, thirty-six square foot areas by four right-angled walls that meet in the middle can be a powerful display in the middle of a large space. Equally impressive can be a rectangular space divided by three walls into four sections with each space open on at least two sides.

Regardless of the number, size, configuration or location of the displays, lighting is critical. Using floods and spots on a track light will bring the displays alive. It is most important to make the displays that are the furthest from the entrance the brightest so they act like a beacon drawing customers deep into the store.

"What is the art and science of aisle width? We want to avoid aisles that squeeze our customers, but at the same time, we want to be able to stock the most products to offer the widest selection possible. Is there a rule to aisle width — for example, should we be able to fit at least two carts and one person in the width of the aisle?"

• Wide aisles facilitate easy movement through the store
• Aisles that are too wide may allow customers to move too quickly and right past some products
• Narrow aisles slow down movement giving the customers the opportunity to appreciate the product
• Aisles that are too narrow clog foot-traffic flow and are a great source of frustration to customers often leading to a premature departure and less frequent return visits

In general, the space immediately inside the threshold to the store should be a relatively open space giving customers the chance to get situated and decide what they want to do next. Aisles leading directly from this area should be relatively wide, inviting and facilitating initial movement deeper into the store.

The minimum width of aisles should be sufficient to accommodate two side-by-side shopping carts, nursery or regular wagons, plus some additional room. So, if you have made the mid-sized flatbed nursery wagons, typically 24" wide, available for your customers, your aisles need to be at least 56" wide. If your customers use red wagons that may be 20" wide, you may be able to get away with 48" wide aisles. It's also good to provide a wider aisle for those who want to deadhead toward a department that is deeper into your nursery or is ready to head back to the cashier's station to checkout. Regardless of the width of your aisles don't expect to accommodate two doublewide baby carriages side-by-side, because they wreak havoc with foot-traffic patters everywhere they go. If, for space saving or store layout reasons you need to narrow some aisles, do so toward the back of your space so the difficulties narrow aisles spawn are encountered after the customer has had a chance to penetrate and see a good deal of the store. Remember too, people stand longer in front of books and jewelry than most any other product categories and aisles should be wider there to accommodate a stationary customer.

The bottom line is that products must be merchandised in a way that allows as broad a selection as possible, but none of that makes much difference if the customers can't get to the product and then have time to consider a purchase before being chased away by another customer as they move down the aisle.

 
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