Tips for maximising your glass cabinet displays

Maximising your sales depends on understanding the three-dimensional nature of your retail space, and positioning. Setting up your glass display cabinets properly is an integral part of visual merchandising.

You need to engage potential customers by attracting them towards your goods, and then through highlighting the benefits and features of your lines, motivate them to buy. You can learn a lot from understanding the way that retailers throughout history have used window displays. Glass display cabinets are just a smaller form of this type of merchandising.

Basic principles of display cabinet merchandising

There may be over 20 different trains of thought going on inside somebody's head whilst they look through the glass at your products, but you can engage them all on six crucial fronts to increase your turnover:

1.       inform the potential client about your product creatively

2.       enable the customer to imagine accessorising with other lines

3.       guide the customer through the store, enabling them to find what they want

4.       funnel them through selected product lines so that selection becomes logical

5.       arrange low selling but high potential products strategically alongside more popular items

6.       position display cabinets strategically throughout the store to create interest and surprise

Your glass display cabinets should ideally complement the overall design of your retail space and not clash with any aspect of it. Try to imagine you're units as blank canvases, upon which you can create interest through colour, product information, lighting, and technology.

Creating Harmony and Contrast

In a multi-brand environment you can create harmony and distinction to focus attention on products. A good example of this is to be found in Elegant Watch and Jewellery, one of Asia’s most prestigious jewellery retailers, in their show piece outlet in the famous International Financial Centre Mall in Hong Kong.

With over 13 brands on sale, you may think it would be strategically difficult to create some sense of harmony but it has been pulled off with great finesse. In 1300 ft.² of retail space they have managed to maximise on sales of Cartier, Bovet, Piaget and Bulgari. Elegant Watch and Jewellery hired the retail design firm Brandimage for the contract.

Catering to a rich (very rich!) client base, the shop utilises a combination of warm tones in the furniture and upholstery, locally sourced bamboo flooring and Art Gallery-like white walls and ceilings. On top of this they have installed high-end Italian light fittings, which create a subtle pathway leading from one brand area to another. Along this central while, certain products are displayed in antique timber casements, whilst the top end branded products from Cartier etc., are housed in glass display cabinets.

In this highly competitive yet lucrative retail zone in Hong Kong, the store makes extensive use of glass casements to form private zones where clients can be seated and shown the jewellery in a more intimate way. Some of the glass cabinets have frosted backs to create screened off areas. To create harmony with the display units, glass walls are also used throughout the store to add a further sense of privacy in various zones.

Alongside the class display cabinets are sumptuously furnished private lounge areas, where the beiges and browns of high-quality upholstery create a warm contrast with the crystal displays.

Obviously, this is an example of the way in which one of the world's most prestigious jewellery retailers maximises the use of glass display cabinets alongside cleverly placed furniture and local materials, such as the bamboo flooring. It creates an overall sense of familiarity, luxury and intimacy, which suits the purchasing habits of the affluent clientele.

However, any retail outlet can learn from the way the design has been implemented in this Hong Kong jewellers. If you're looking to make the most of your retail space through display cabinets, please contact us at Display Cabinets Direct and we will be happy to discuss your requirements.