Increase Retail Revenues:

Small business retailers need to do all they can to reverse the current downturn in consumer spending. One approach involves frequent updating of window displays. An effective display can intrigue customers and invite them in. Displays can generate impulse buys. Over the years, displays in general have become more sophisticated. Have yours?

Potential customers walk by your storefront in a matter of seconds. Your first challenge is to attract their attention. If someone stops to look, you've nearly got them in the door. Come up with something innovative and engaging to attract that attention.

1. The first step is to go outside and really take a look at those windows. Are they clean? Do you see bugs, cobwebs, faded signs and merchandise? Get several people to take an objective look at your display and honestly tell you what they think.
   
   
2. Feature a particular product. What did you sell the most of last month? Last week? Feature that in your window, with a banner "hot seller," poster board of customer quotes, or with a running total indicating how many have sold.
   
   
3. Work with your vendors. Do any of them have posters or materials they would furnish for display in your windows? If they have quantities of something, you could stack them in your windows. Recently a bookstore put stacks of old encyclopedias to work, gluing them together like structural columns for an interesting and amusing effect.
   
   
4. Let a local non-profit organization promote itself with a display. How about having the local Arts Council provide works of art for display in your windows? You could alert the local newspaper to this "donation" and provide a story and photograph of the results. Display "art" from a local pre-school or elementary school.
   
   
5. Where's Waldo? Take a page from this popular children's book and create a display where the passerby must find a particular item in your display.
   
   
6. Change your display frequently. You can either change the entire theme, or move one or two eye-catching items around. The point is to attract attention and interest for your business.
   
   
7. Illuminate your window at night. Consider something as simple as a string of twinkle lights, or a spotlight focused on your display. Tonight's display may interest tomorrow's customer.
   
   
8. Use color. Rather than displaying a mix of products, use color as your theme. Fill your window with red and white items this month, green and pink next month.
   
   
9. Be a calendar. Ghosts and goblins are traditional for Halloween, but you could also feature unusual occasions. Other themes for October could relate to Columbus Day, national book month, red ribbon week, national boss day or the World Series. (For more ideas and a link to the retail promotion calendar, visit Making the Calendar Work for Your Business.)
   
   
10. Think whimsy and entertainment. One empty storefront (for lease) recently displayed a life-sized bear sculpture made from crushed soda cans in the window. Granted, it must have taken days to construct and required a large quantity of cans, but it was stopping traffic on a major city street as people looked in that window.

As a retailer, you spend most of your time inside the operation, managing finances, really working in the business. Take some time to go outside and really study the message your exterior is sending to potential customers. With a small expenditure of funds, some creativity and time, you can put those display windows to work for you.

Contact your local Small Business and Technology Development Center for more help with marketing, sales and other business management issues.