10 Surefire Practices for Creative Merchandising Success

#1 Practice: Know Your Customer

If you know your customer and who it is you are aiming your campaign, then your battle is half over. Do you have a specific age customer? Men or women? Median income or higher income? Does your ideal have a particular hobby or need, skill or interest?

#2 Practice: Prominently Display Customer Benefits.

Your potential customer will be the person who wants to know how your product can help them in their life. Give them what they want and make and display those most endearing qualities prominently.

#3 Practice: Know Your Design Budget

Create a prototype of your packaging and work with a professional to get an estimate to see what it will cost to make your packaging come to reality. If your overall expenses for packaging are over budget, you'll need to redesign to bring design within budget. If you have several configurations, ask yourself which one keeps you within budget?

#4 Practice: More Design Options Are Better than Less

Start with several designs then choose the best one. Ask your family and friends for their help; the more savvy shopper they are, the better. Stay objective and retest. Leet is sat a few days and retest, again.

#5 Practice: Reverse Engineer the Competition

If your competition is using a particular kind of packaging and shelf space? What makes their packaging so successful? What are their customers saying about their packaging? Easy to access, open, visibility, lettering and color? You don't have to re-invent the wheel.

#6 Practice: Measure design acceptance by Consumer

Will the customer accept my design? How is it like or different from others in the same category? Will the vendor have difficulty stocking my product? Can it be easily handled by the customer? Will you be using cardboard boxes? Would plastic be better in a tropical climate?

#7 Practice: Consider which material will be best to use

If you are using cardboard boxes how will stacking them in the warehouse effect them? WIll paper be worst than plastic? Does your product need more protection or less? Do you have a product that requires stronger packaging?

#8 Practice: Consistency among brands

Do you have a consistency that customers can recognize among your various brands? Is your packaging reminiscent of other brands? If so, is there a reason for the similarity? Will your brand be so similar to other brands that it will be hidden? Visibility and recognizability bring sales.

#9 Practice: Shopper Appeal

Does your product need customer hands-on experience at the point of sale? Will your vendor allow open-box display? Will your product easily break if handled by children? Will your product lose its quality after extended exposure?

#10 Practice: Consider Customer perception

Wat will your customer see the first three seconds? What is your customers first impressions? Are they drawn to what is inside the box or the box itself? Can your product be easily understood by the packaging?