COMPARING RETAIL MERCHANDISING TO PROPERTY MERCHANDISING

By
Home Stager with SPACELiFT HOME STAGING, Greater Vancouver

Retailers get it!  Developers get it!   Buyers BUY based on emotion.

Visual merchandisers have been tempting potential customers into their stores for years with enticing window displays and beautifully merchandised interiors. Using all kinds of attention getting devices, like colour, prop and good lighting, they draw you into the store. Once in there, if you love the product and it is priced right, you will buy!  But............... you have to get them inside the store before they can buy. 

Developers have been using display suites for years.  Why is that?  Perhaps because they know that when a buyer walks in and can SEE what the space looks like, no guessing is needed.  The decor is beautiful and the buyers imagine themselves moving right in.  They fall in love with how the space looks, and why not?  That was the point of the design.

The same is true when selling a property.  Research shows that 77% of homebuyers look the property on the Internet before going to look at a house and 75% of those go on to drive by or view the home.  The photos need to entice the potential buyer to want to come and look at the property.  Once they are inside the home, they can't be disappointed.  Buyers make decisions based on emotions.  If they fall in love with the property, their emotions will drive them to make an offer.  Home staging will help turn that first impression into a sale. 

HUGE dollars go into the decor of SUCCESSFUL retailers today.  There have been many studies by retail companies about the psychology of merchandising.  It is an extremely competitive industry, just like real estate.  They always need to be ahead of the competition.  Customers go back again and again to stores where they have enjoyed the shopping experience.  Why would they want any different when they are looking to spend what is to most people, the biggest purchase in their lives? Staged homes appeal to that emotion. Buyers are much more savvy and demanding these days.  They want to be sure when they spend their money.  

Staging is not interior decorating!  It's all business. When people get ready to sell their home, it becomes a product.  This product has strengths and weaknesses as well as competition just like retailers.  To compete, you must look better than any other product and you must be priced right..................... just like at the mall.

 

  window display 2

Comments (18)

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities
Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Product presentation becomes very important when there are several similar products to choose from. 

Jul 13, 2008 04:49 AM
Holly Sirois
Sold on Staging - Atlanta, GA
Home Stager - Atlanta

Lisa, You are so right.   It seems like every retailer gets it or why else would billions be spent annually on advertising and merchandising? A home is the most expensive purchase a person makes. It's a smart seller who realizes the need to treat their home like the expensive product it is and hire a great realtor to market it and a professional stager to merchandize it. Great Post!

Jul 13, 2008 06:03 AM
Cathy Lee
CL Design Services Home Staging - Danville, CA
ASP, IAHSP, RESA Danville, CA

Restaurants get it too!  They are staged so well now these days-so is the food!!  Great, well written post.  

Jul 13, 2008 06:48 AM
Lisa Roy
SPACELiFT HOME STAGING, Greater Vancouver - Vancouver, BC

Great comment about the restaraunts Cathy!  I did some merchandising for The Hard Rock Cafe and for a restaraunt at the airport here in Vancouver when the new international wing opened years ago.  Can't beleive I didn't mention them.  Thanks for the reminder.  It makes so much sense that visual presentation works, yet it's still not mainstream in the real estate industry.

Jul 13, 2008 09:38 AM
Kathi Presutti
RE:STYLE LLC - Brighton, MI
Re:Style, LLC

Great analogy, Lisa! I spent over 30 years (I started when ai was prepubescent:>) in advertising, and I always tell my Realtors that while it may be "location, location, location", it's also "emotion, emotion, emotion" that sells! 

Packaging is another good example--companies pay big $$$ to get packaging that tests well with consumers.

I often tell my clients (as many of us do) that their house is now a product on the market, in competition with other like products. How do they get theirs to compete successfully? Packaging, and touching those buyer hot buttons. As we all know, we're not just selling houses, we're selling the lifestyle a homeowner will have in that house!

Jul 13, 2008 11:07 AM
Michelle & Joe Kaspari
Essential Home Staging - Sacramento, CA
Essential Home Staging, Sacramento

Great blog, as a former Visual Merchandiser in the furniture retail industry, you are right on the money!  Thanks for posting...

Michelle Kaspari

 

Jul 13, 2008 12:04 PM
Kathy Nielsen
http://atlantahomestaging.net - Marietta, GA
Atlanta Georgia Home Stager

Great post, Lisa as it's so very true.  It's amazing how "displays" can further entice you in.  As you mention, a home is a product and if you truly want to increase the odds of it selling more quickly, it needs to be presented nicely.

Kathy

Jul 13, 2008 12:32 PM
No Longer Active in Staging. No Longer Staging
Hickory, NC

Lisa, Your post is absolutely true.. We must make the best presentation to evoke the buyer's emotional attachment.  God bless,

Jul 13, 2008 01:31 PM
Barbara Cluck-Miksits
BCM Home Staging LLC - Ridgewood, NJ
Home Staging - New Jersey

Lisa, I was a visual merchandise designer for 25 years. I know how important it is to market a product.

It is true when you stage a house it is all about the visual design, you are marketing a product (the house). You are enhancing the features to entice buyers to come in and buy. Good post.

Jul 13, 2008 01:44 PM
Cindy Bryant
Redesign Etc. Home Staging - Houston, TX
"Houston Home Staging Pros"

Visual merchandising is what we do, and yes the big retailers get it, and have branded their names.  When you hear the name of certain stores saty Sears vs. Macy's you get a different picture or thought in your head.

Jul 13, 2008 05:10 PM
Shobha Vyavahare
stagewithme, Greenville, South Carolina - Greenville, SC

you are right, if it looks good it must be good that is the thought that crosses buyers mind when they see a well staged home.  It is all in the packaging/presentation.

Shobha

Jul 13, 2008 11:15 PM
C. Bartch
Newark, OH

Lisa,

I've done display work for a few storefronts and the the concept is the same in home staging. Tempt that walk or drive by traffic to come in and see what else you might be offering!

 

Jul 13, 2008 11:24 PM
Ginger Foust
Certified Staging Professional - Oakhurst, CA
Home Stager Oakhurst CA, Dream Interior Redesign & Staging

Lisa, very well stated and since our homes are the most expensive product that most of us ever own, it is crazy that so many sellers and agents don't get it and realize that merchandising this product needs to be part of their budget. 

 I truly believe that it will be SOMEDAY, just like home inspections.  Home inspections started out, not too long ago, as just an option, but I rarely hear about a home not having one today.

My friends in the title and escrow business feel like the availability of staging should be another initial disclosure that sellers should sign.  Wouldn't that be interesting. 

Thanks for sharing your expertise. 

Jul 14, 2008 02:34 AM
Bonner Thomason
Keller Williams Realty - Kernersville, NC
CRS, ABR, GRI, e-Pro

Remind to dress to impress. Good point be reminded of over and over.

Jul 14, 2008 02:52 AM
Nancy Ewing
Creative Angle REdesign & Staging - Dillon, CO

Lisa, I could not agree with you more.  I have a degree in Fashion Merchandising, spent 15 years in retail with Neiman Marcus and Mervyn's and now I'm a stager!!!!  You are spot on, and great examples.  Nancy

Jul 14, 2008 03:49 AM
Yvonne Root
rooms b.y. root - Prescott, AZ
Home Stager - Northern Arizona

Lisa, because I'm a former display manager, your post caught my eye and my attention. Yep, you are so right -- products must me merchandised correctly, priced correctly and marketed correctly in order to sell. And, yes, for-sale homes are products. It seems like such a simple concept. Yet. . . Education is the key and I'm glad you are doing such a great job of teaching!

Jul 14, 2008 05:32 AM
Lisa Roy
SPACELiFT HOME STAGING, Greater Vancouver - Vancouver, BC

Thanks Yvonne!  I am actually teaching a home staging night class in the fall with the Vancouver School Board as well as doing a presentation with a Real Estate marketing class.  The more we all get out there and educate people on the power of staging, the better!  It still surprises me that so many people will shop in a store they like because of how it makes them feel but don't understand that concept when selling their homes. 

Jul 14, 2008 05:39 AM
Lisa Roy
SPACELiFT HOME STAGING, Greater Vancouver - Vancouver, BC

Sounds like there are a few stagers out there with retail display and merchandising backgrounds!  Having to display products in a way that apeals to customers and makes them buy is a great asset to have in the staging industry.  It has really helped me know what it is that appeals to consumers.

Thanks for all your comments!

Jul 16, 2008 03:45 PM