Where Do You Put The 800 Pound Gorillas in Your Showroom? Thoughts from DPHA Fellow Jeffrey Valles, Colonial Bronze

Central Arizona Supply Showroom Designed by SH Design Build.

You are laying out your showroom, starting with placing the most popular brands in the market. These are the big brands that spend a lot of money promoting their products and that help motivate people to visit your showroom. So, you place these asked for companies right up front. Your customers will immediately know that you are THE place for big brands A, B and C. Life will be good.

However, how many other showrooms in your market also proudly shout they distribute these mega lines? In addition to those competitors, the local big box stores are also proud distributors, and then there are all the internet companies that would be happy to sell these customer-trusted brands. In reality, these best-known industry brands are being sold by a lot of companies that are targeting your core customers. With all this competitive noise, is it a sound merchandising move to set these familiar and heavily distributed brands front and center? Do you really want them to be the first products your customers see and align with your brand? Does this initial hit move your client to think your showroom is different from all the others in your market? Is this a way to help improve quote closure and profit? Life will be tough.

Today’s experience-craving customers are looking for showrooms to introduce them to new brands, new products and creative applications. Luxury and premium designers, architects and design enthusiasts want to see and interact with the latest and greatest, not necessarily the most advertised stuff. If they are using your showroom to simply buy products that they have seen in their email feed, you are no longer a go-to showroom and can easily lose the customer to your local big box or ecommerce site. What story do you want your professional design, build and homeowner clients to share? Buy it here! Or, let us help you design your best space. Life will be a story.

For a lot of showrooms these broad reaching brands are your top sellers, actively drive customer to your front door and are good partners. I am not saying that the lines should be removed. I am saying that they should be moved from the front and set elsewhere in the showroom.

We all know why supermarkets set the milk and bread in the back of the store. Customers must walk through the entire store to see all the fabulous brands and products they offer. Maybe they will add a few items to their cart that they had not intended to purchase on this shopping trip. Simple and time-proven. So why not do the same in your showroom?

Most of your business is from your returning design and building trade professionals. If the everyday brands are in the back, the wandering eyes of your good customers will see some of the smaller designer brands you offer, the new products you have just set and the smashing vignettes you have created. You want them to know you are so much more than just the big brands. You want them to understand that they can rely on you to show them the latest and greatest from the most obscure company to the household names.

People are becoming increasing comfortable buying on their computer and the pandemic has increased the speed of this change. Just look at the sales at Wayfair. They were given up for dead in January, now they are a Wall Street darling. You must make your showrooms a step above and away from your many levels of competition. It must scream different. They have to see what it is that makes the trip to your showrooms special and by placing the known brands in the back you will help your customers better understand the amazing possibilities you have found for them.

Most important of all, your client has to know and appreciate you are the very best partner in the analog and digital worlds to help them design, order and install the right products to create great spaces. Your team knows how to help them put it all together. You want to make sure all customers know your showroom is a place to build something, not simply buy. That is the story you want your customers to share. Afterall, life is a story.