We all love a good story, don’t we?

Hearing a funny one can brighten our spirits, while listening to a tale of heroism bolsters our strength.

Have you ever considered that the way you present your business, your products, your services, is YOUR story to tell? That the way you present your products can speak volumes to your customers AT FIRST GLANCE?

It’s true.

You can begin to ‘Tell Your Story’ from the moment that potential customers first view your business.

My goal as a retail consultant has been to help every business discover what their unique story IS, and then relay it to customers in an effective and original way. Over 35 years, I’ve been able to assist thousands of retailers achieve success in the way they present their businesses and products. I’ve done this through the displays and stores I have designed for them, the articles I have written for magazines, blogs and websites, and by presenting seminars at national gift shows. Those retailers have run the gamut from corporate wineries and independent home décor boutiques to artisans and antique dealers who sell at shows and in malls and galleries.

The same basic guidelines work for all of them, because the Story is all in the ‘Telling’… each business uses elements that help them stand out from the competition. (Much like the way a good story or joke is told with voice inflection, pauses, facial expressions, and a good summary or punch line!)

One of those elements is how you display your goods.

Visual merchandising/display is the process of thoughtfully presenting your products. Whether you do that in an online venue like eBay or Etsy or your own web store, in a retail store of your own, in a rented space within an antique mall or cooperative, or as a vendor at shows, it is important to maximize this part of your business in a busy and often overwhelmingly ‘similar’ marketplace. At shows and malls, your ‘competition’ is literally inches away from you…. making your booth and your products stand out from the crowd is paramount to getting noticed! You certainly don’t want to look just like the guy next door. (Do you?)

Increasing your ‘visual impact’ – which is the way that your customers SEE your business and products – starts helping you to sell without speaking a word. It’s the equivalent to the great opening line of a story or joke, and catches people’s attention: A customer coming down the aisle at a show sees a fabulous color, or item, or setting in the booth in front of them, and they are intrigued to come closer and discover more.

As the customer comes closer, a bit more detail in the displays is revealed, drawing them INTO your booth to investigate further. The customer is now in proximity to you, the salesperson – or, in the case of mall space, to your signage and price tags. Either one serves the purpose of providing information and detail about the products…telling more of the story.

The customer is now actively participating in the selling process by looking closely, touching, perhaps picking up (trying ON, maybe?) your products. Here is where you give them the full story: You inform and entertain by offering more information on the items, sharing alternative uses and added value, why this is an opportunity not to be missed.

You make the visual impact so strong, so intriguing to them, that they cannot resist the pull to take a part of it home with them. Even if they purchase only a small something, they can own a bit of the magic that you have created and introduced them to. With them, they take your information so that they can be sure to visit you again and repeat the experience. This is how you use the story you tell to sell products – but also to create an experience, build a brand and develop a fan base.

As a part of my seminar ‘Tell Your Own Story’, I offer an outline of the basics in displaying products and designing retail space. In 2009, I created a new version specifically for antique dealers. It contains dozens of basic and advanced tips on maximizing your visual impact, and will help you plan and develop the Story that you will tell through your booth’s appearance. I’d love to share it with you, to assist you in discovering and telling YOUR story!

You can access the document here (http://decodivadebi.blogspot.com/2009/10/creating-successful-displays-resource.html) and also find it on the sidebar links on my Retail Design Website (http://www.DebiWardKennedy.com ). Please feel free to use it to develop your own visual plan, and share the link to it as you wish. The material contained within that document is my original work, and is not to be used in any book, article, blog post, class, seminar, or other method of sharing with others for profit or press. Contact me via email for permissions at debi.wardkennedy@gmail.com

My website ALSO features six videos about retail display & merchandising – I produced the series in 2008 for the Gift & Home Channel, and filmed at The Farm Chicks Antique Show in Spokane, Washington. You’ll find a plethora of inspiring ideas, tips, and examples of successful booth design and display in those videos.

My Retail Design Blog, accessible from my website, offers resources on every aspect of display and retail visual merchandising – literally hundreds of links, articles, tips, photos, books, videos, and more.

While I am providing those resources online, with a limited availability of private consulting and speaking/writing engagements, I am focused on utilizing my experience and abilities in our own Vintage Industry business: Retreat http://www.RetreatStyle.com . I invite you to come and introduce yourselves if you are at a show that we are selling at! Our 2011 schedule is on our website.

Content of attachment and this post is original content property of Debi Ward Kennedy Copyright 2008, 2010. www.DebiWardKennedy.com | debi.wardkennedy@gmail.com

What started out as a wonderful buy and sell marketplace for the unique and unusual has been tweaked beyond recognition.

Year by year, change by change, small sellers of vintiques and collectibles get squeezed out in favor of high volume sellers selling 50,000 packages of imported socks in a single fixed price listing.

I guess the ultimate goal is to turn eBay into Amazon. But we already have an Amazon … and we really, truly miss the old eBay — the simple to use, fun to browse, easy to buy at old eBay.  In my opinion, the high-flying CEO, John Donahoe, took a great thing and broke it.

My past sales on eBay were minimal. I was never a big seller by any stretch, but I enjoyed using it both as a seller and as a buyer. I think this is where Mr. Donahoe made a really bad calculation.  All those thousands of small time sellers the company treats so badly, who he wishes would go away?  Yeah.  We were also shoppers and buyers on eBay who now avoid the site like the plague.

It’s sad to watch a once wonderful business turn into something unrecognizable. However, it’s par for the course, isn’t it?  The cool Indiepreneur business sells to – or becomes – a big corporation which then hires a CEO determined (tasked?) to get double-digit growth next quarter … no matter what, and the changes that are made end up destroying the very essence of what made the business successful in the first place.  Modern mega-corporations aren’t satisfied with a steady 5% growth each year. Nope. That’s just not good enough for stock prices. Why is that?

What brought on this rant, you ask?  Well, I’ve been following this year’s drastic changes at eBay via Auction Bytes and reading the comments of the remaining small sellers. I feel for them, many of whom are just trying to earn a living and/or supplement their incomes.

How long has it been since you just browsed the listings? And how long has it been since you actually bought anything on it?

I wonder because I have remaining inventory from my eshop I had planned to list closer to the holidays. Is it even worth the fees and my time?

With eBay listing fee sales on fixed-priced auctions only, many sellers are wondering if auctions are on their way out for eBay.

The multitude of changes at eBay, in general, seem to signal a move away from small-time sellers, and Indiepreneurs are eager to find alternatives to the giant online marketplace — to spread out into new ecommerce selling venues.

Here’s an online auction site you may want to investigate. It could prove to be a very good and viable alternative to eBay.

eBid

eBid is free to join, free to list and takes a 3% final value fee (end-of-sale commission) for casual sellers.

Upgrades for higher volume professional sellers are available to you at additional fees.

You may find the choices of payment portals to be very refreshing, and with a multitude of countries supported, eBid is quite international.

Please click on the banner to register and investigate further whether eBid is right for you.