How to be shelf-ish – top tips for merchandising your practice

How you present products in your waiting room can have a big impact on how interesting they are to your clients. We have some tips to help you make better recommendations, direct from the fixture.

• Keep it clean – it’s a pain but daily dusting or a wipe down is essential for open shelves. As well as concerns about hygiene, dusty products imply that other pet owners are not interested and can undermine confidence.
• Mind the gap – don’t allow gaps to appear, bring product to the front and fill any spaces. A full fixture will be shopped from more than a sparse one.
• Star products – your best sellers should be displayed below eye level (at what is called ‘grab level’ between the chest and waist) and for longer fixtures be aware that people only really start concentrating around the middle of the run of shelves.
• Too much choice – sometimes less can be more! Clients consider you the expert and by offering more than one brand choice in a category, you can dilute the power of that recommendation. Also many brand ranges are made to look at their best and are easier to select when placed in a block on shelf.
• Make sure any aids you need to explain the benefits of products are close at hand – use wall space or attach guides to the shelf so that you don’t have to go searching for them when you are busy.