Saturday, February 7, 2015

Panoply Booth Resets - Open For Business

Thanks everybody for your feedback on my Goodbye, January post. I am normally content with the quiet which January brings, but getting sick this year really did a number on my mood and energy.

I am happy to report I am back in the swing of things, and just finished a major overhaul in our Panoply booth spaces with sister M this past week. Allow me to guide you through the first [major] leg of our 2015 booth space overhauls, designed to be more open for business, both literally and figuratively. This practice is what's commonly known in retail as merchandising, or displaying for the purpose of customer appeal and sales enticement.

These first two photos are macro views of the new arrangements for our two spaces. The first I'll refer to as the Panoply Proper Booth, as it's typically a little dressier in furnishings and details.
The second space will now be referred to as Panoply Casual Booth, formerly known as Primitive Booth. Sister J is our primitive expert, and while those items consistently sell well, they also seem to loom in darkness when approaching the space in the past. The goal was to open it up and lighten the space. We know some customers would rather dig in clutter displays, so we tried to leave a few corner cubbies for rummaging, too.
We had a plan in mind before going into this work day, and it mostly involved switching up the Casual Booth, but that inevitably led to several changes to both spaces. The first switch involved this major furniture flip pictured below.
We had just brought the secretary in after the holidays, and slid it into the space where our Christmas corner was previously (as seen above - our path of least resistance at that time). However, we knew the piece was more suited for the Proper Booth, so the blue dresser came from Proper to Casual, and the secretary went from Casual to Proper.

The next major flip was with the two pieces pictured below. The black painted stepback went from the Proper to the Casual, and the china cabinet went to the Proper from Casual.
This is how the black cabinet now looks like in the Casual Booth:
Pictured below is how the china cabinet looks in the Proper Booth. I did a photo splice of the Proper Booth's left side because I didn't get this entire wall in the overall leading photo of this space. However, the china cabinet stands flat on the left side of our space, while the blue chair and secretary both stand at the same 45° angle just beyond the china cabinet (better seen in the leading photo).
Back to the Casual Booth space and what we really wanted to accomplish: opening up the center section and doing something different on the center wall space. After more heavy lifting with plans A and B not working, we ended up with a very similar look as before. This was due to the fact that the breaker box is situated on that wall, staff must have access to it, and the wall has no option of hanging anything. The primitive cabinet ended up right back where it started, but with a different, lighter base.
The crate display in the center of the floor was the result of gathering the boxes and focusing on making them available vs. using them to corral a bunch of junk treasures which otherwise prohibited purchase. We moved the treasures into things other than crates, and took a few things out (mortal sin of antiquers).
Previously, the shelving unit we installed last fall was set where the crates are now, and it cut this space in half, lengthwise. We moved the shelving units to stand parallel to the main traffic aisle and flow of customers, anchoring the right side of the Casual Booth space.This is directly across from the stairway to mezzanine and upper floors.
Cleaning up the wall just to the right of the center of Casual Booth, we ended up with the following:
As you can see, this wall is tricky for creating displays also, with that wonky HVAC ductwork and the thermostat right smack in the middle of the wall. Hanging the ironing board similarly to how we've hung chairs before really helps minimize clutter on the floor space. To the left and right of the bench, as well as on and below it, are galvanized pieces, another conscious effort to group like items for customers looking for those type wares.
From the angle you see pictured above, there is a space, albeit narrow, to walk through the area, just beside the shelving unit.  You can see the perspective better in the photo of the shelving unit a couple photos above this one.

We Sister M wants to change up the wall of mirrors, so I suppose that will be next. Gardening items need to be brought out and fully displayed also. Our locked cases (not visible in either of these spaces pictured) need to be changed up too, so there's plenty to do in the coming weeks. We fully intended to make a section for sale and clearance items this past week, but for now we're running an overall sale of all items. We'll see how things look in the coming weeks and whether or not the sale section materializes.

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