I was on an art tour this past weekend and visited several galleries with the artists and guest artists displaying their work and hoping to make sales. Unlike at many art fairs, these artists were displaying their work indoors in galleries and studios and not on uneven ground with portable display units. The display units were all regular ones that were not intended to be easily transported from place to place. Consequently, I was surprised when I discovered, quite by accident that the largest, highest priced pieces were often displayed on the very top shelves of these units, above the line of site for most of the attendees.
I mentioned that I discovered this by accident. As I was moving around the gallery of one of the artists, my sister asked if I’d seen such and such piece. I answered, “no” as I had not noticed the work that she was describing. When she pointed it out to me, it was on the top shelf of a display and because it was well above my line of sight, I’d never even noticed the work. In spite of its size and bold colors. As we continued our way along the tour, I made a point of observing how the other artists were displaying their work, and was amazed to find this to be a consistent trend amongst most of them. Their largest and most pricey pieces were displayed well above the average visitors’ line of sight.
Unfortunately, this seems to be true in optometry offices, too. In the retail section of the clinic where the doctor is trying to make sales of frames, the highest price point items are often displayed on the top shelf, above the line of sight of most patients. This is caused partially by the way the display units are designed. Otherwise, it could just be that the person stocking and organizing the frames in the displays is not focusing on putting the highest margin items right at eye level where they will grab the most attention.
In designing the optometry clinic’s retail space, the frame displays need to be designed so they will showcase the most eye catching, highest margin items right in the patient’s field of vision where they will be noticed first. The displays need to be designed to spotlight these frames with the best lighting to also help move the patient through the clinic and pay attention to all of the pieces that are being featured. In this way those items that will do the most toward improving the bottom line will get the most attention, and as a result, the most sales.
