Marketing has always been about finding out what people want, and then presenting them with that in as appealing a way as possible. Shop Mannequins have been shown to handle the presentation very effectively, but of course you need to make sure that you get your display and choice of mannequins right.

Shop Mannequins allow you to present a complete image to your customer, that clothes and accessories hanging on a rack alone won't do.  You want to show prospects that the items will look good on them when they wear them, and that they create the image they want to present.  People want to look good in front of others.  They also want to wear things that other people agree is the fashion. Shop-front displays show them what the latest fashion trends are.

Research

It's important that you do some research so that you present the right image with your shop mannequins.

• You need to be aware of who the opinion leaders and trendsetters are for your target public.  Often they are celebrities, so if you get some recent magazine pictures of what they're wearing, you have an idea.

• Your suppliers usually do their market research before developing a product.  So it can be good to see how they present their goods and if possible ask them for any results of their research that they're prepared to give you.

• It's not a good idea to rely solely on the manufacturer for style/presentation ideas, as they may not have got it right - always confirm things from a variety of sources.

The mannequins themselves should represent as closely as possible, how the shoppers want to perceive themselves.  Here's an example:

You may have a new range of shirts and trousers to display, and the data to hand is that these are targeting middle aged business-men. You may have 2 options : to either place the garments on abstract, colourful mannequins, or conservative, headless white ones.

You should check with the local business men.  And you might be surprised to find that while you perceived them to be quite, conservative types who like to blend into the background.  They actually consider themselves to be trendy, colourful people.  So to effectively market to them you should use the modern, colourful mannequins.

Statistics ? Split Testing ?

If you run a business, you should always manage by statistics.  This means that you take action based on the trend of the statistic graph.  There is technique called "split-testing" used in other areas of marketing that can be very applicable to shop mannequin displays. You should have 2 displays of the same clothes, but there is a difference between them.  Pay attention to which display creates the most sales over a period.  Then adjust the losing display, and see if you can make more sales out of the adjusted display. If you do this over & over then you're always improving the displays ability to sell.

So as a summary

1. Do some market research on your products before displaying them;

2. Get data about how your customers perceive themselves;

3. Create shop mannequins and displays that demonstrate to the customers how the articles being displayed will provide them with the image they are after;

4. Don't stop there - split test your displays to continue improving their sales ability.