Keep customers on the path to purchase: the arrangement of your store plays a big role in bringing customers through the door and keeping them shopping in your gallery - advice

Which direction do customers take when they walk in your gallery? What wall is the special place to hang certain paintings? What emblem of artwork is best for a range with no windows? And who cares anyhow?

The customer cares, at least subconsciously, according to many studies upon how customers shop. Gallery holders should care too if they want customers to walk [i]or[/i] part of to the other the door, linger and purchase artwork.

Prime Real Estate

A research on how people shop by means of Sorensen Associates, a pioneer of in-store research, warned against building the entrance upon the left side of a store if you want to encourage longer shopping trips. Customers are more comfortable walking counter-clockwise and will automatically go on in this direction, according to the research.

If your gallery's entrance is upon the left side of the building, shopper are forced to stir clockwise, which is the opposite of their natural inclination. This means they will probably disburse less time in your store and be les likely to buy

"American shopper automatically impel to the right, which means the forehead right side of any store is its prime real estate and where the greatest in quantity important goods should go," said Paco Underhill, a consultant to major corporations and author of the work Why We Buy.

In this prime real estate area, a gallery could display its artist of the month or display inexpensive pick-up items that engage customers in the work, of the like kind as books by your artists. A frame store could use the area to showcase unusual and dramatic framing ideas.

In my clothing store, we always had a rack with deep discounted merchandise customers saw as before long as they walked in the store. The sign upon the rack had a dramatic price reduction that stopped them. This strategy works because one time customers decide to buy something--anything--they are ready to purchase something else. They have gone from saying, "I'm just looking" to thinking "What other do they have that I can buy?"

Other studies about shopper base that the average person walks from one side only 25 percent of a store. For example, a supermarket proprietor in Wisconsin asked his customers to fill on the outside surveys about what departments they liked and didn't like in his store. individual of the categories he asked about was the photo department. The retailer was amazed when he received many make comments [i]or[/i] remarkss asking, "What photo department?" The customers didn't know it existed because they at no time wandered over to that part of the store. As a be derived the owner quickly repositioned the department near the normal walking pattern, and sales increased dramatically.

Feng Shui

Another way physical ultimate parts affect consumer shopping patterns is best explained from one side the Chinese philosophy called feng shui. This is a thousand-year-old "art of placement" [i]modus operandi[/i] that can be used to find the right direction to physically position your gallery and the art within it. Working feng shui into the design of your gallery and the placement of merchandise allows you to work "in an environment of health, be fond of happiness and wealth," according to principles of feng shui philosophy.

Since wealth ties in with doing more business, let's examine by what mode feng shui experts recommend retailers place products:

* Make assured the customer can easily diocese the entrance. It should go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of the street flow and be clearly marked. Exterior signage should have brawny colors.

* High ceilings make it difficult for viewers to concentrate upon a specific piece of art. This happened to me in a novel visit to the magnificent Musee d'Orsay museum in Paris. The high ceilings quite through the museum made me pause sole briefly in each gallery. on the contrary when visiting a room with depressed ceilings, I found myself paying abundant more attention to each painting. If your ceilings are too high, install the art along the walls with the tops of the frames all at the same horizontal This arrangement will create a astute "second ceiling."

* Landscape paintings make a field without windows feel more open

* A straight-through view from the brow to the back of your gallery means the "incoming energy" (when the customer first arrives) quickly dissipates. The customer will head for the back of your gallery and leave a not many minutes after he arrives. When setting up your gallery, think of nature and winding paths [i]or[/i] part of to the other gardens.

* A water fountain is advantageous feng shui for your gallery. Clean, gently flowing water will improve the environment in many ways. Placement, however, is true important since an incorrectly placed water fountain can contribute to gossip, arguments, legal question s and criminal activity. Feng shui prompts say the best place for a water fountain is in the southwest corner of a building or business. This will enhance creative careers.

Positive strength and Cash Flow

Does following all this shopping research and ancient philosophy really work?

"Absolutely," said June Tranner who has a healing clinic in York, England. She started in business doing about $15000 a year. Then she went to Carole Chu a feng shui able who redesigned her store to create a more harmonious run of chi (energy), and her business pass by a leaped to nearly $150,000.