Page 41 - Jan 2019 MM

BUILDING
Your Mix
The Paper Store endured by expanding into different product categories that are relevant for its customers. Here, Meg Lavoie shares tips on how to add a new product category to your merchandise mix.
1. Listen to the chatter. One great way to identify trends in the making is to listen and observe other buyers at the gift markets and elsewhere.
By seeing products that are drawing a crowd in showrooms, or reading articles in industry publications about what’s selling for other retailers, you can find products that will likely create similar excitement
in your own store.
2.Get behind a new item or category. When they’re about to introduce something
new, they put a marketing plan into place. This includes knowing how it’ll be represented on social media, filming a little video to show the product’s features, including it in catalogs and direct mail pieces and educating employees so they can, in turn, educate
the customers.
3.Give new categories a prominent location. New product categories or product lines
often get a place of honor right in front of the store, with signage to help draw customers’ attention.
As the product takes off, the space might increase,
and then once it’s established, it’s moved into a more permanent location elsewhere in the store, to make
room for another introduction.
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