How to Merchandise Swimwear

Women’s swimwear is a spring/summer staple and one of the most important segments for any surf retailer. Merchandising it correctly over the summer months is crucial to getting and maintaining good sales, so we’ve asked market leader Seafolly on some tips on how to do it properly.

Visual Merchandising with Seafolly

First impressions count!
Visual merchandising starts with a strong window presentation. At Seafolly our windows definitely have the ‘WOW’ factor! It’s imperative that our windows are set up to the highest standard, have strong imagery and are clean and well lit, as this is the first image and impression our customers have of our stores.

Merchandising Overview

The main purpose of visual merchandising is to create a visually pleasing environment that will capture customers attention which will translate into sales. When deciding on product placement and presentation, you need to identify areas that will maximise sales within your store.

Traffic Flow
How do your customers enter the store? What areas do they shop from the most? This will determine how you merchandsie your product.

Sightlines
They are created to make it easy for the customer to flow through the store without obstruction and to open up areas where theft can occur.

Product
There are simple rules to follow when merchandising:

• ‘Map’ out the store first – this means grab one of each style you need to merchandise in each area of the store and place one of each item first.

• Print, plain, print, plain – tie in plain colour swim that picks up a colour within the print of the highlighted swim style.

• Smallest to largest, top to bottom. Ie, start from the smallest style of swim (by cup size/style) at the top of the wall and work your way down to the largest style.

• New product must always be the focus and highlighted in “Hot Spots”.

• Utilise outwear to break up your swim.

• Accessories add interest into your merchandising, completing a head to toe outfit which will create ‘add on’ sales.

• The wall is balanced in layout and use of colour.

Wall Bay Configuration

Your walls are one of the most important areas of the store when merchandising, and must look maintained and well stocked at all times. There are x3 configurations of wall bay layouts you can follow; mirror, repetition and wardrobe.

Mirror
Symmetrical merchandising when if you are to fold the wall bay in half it would be the same product from the middle outwards.

Repetition
When you repeat the merchandising pattern throughout the wall bay.

Wardrobe
A-symmetrical merchandising using side hangs in the wall bay to break up the wall.

REMEMBER: Always walk through your store as if you are looking through your customers eyes. Ask yourself: What’s new and exciting? What grabs my attention? What makes me want to buy?

Swimwear Standards

All swimwear needs to be neatly tied and maintained at all times.
All swim tags need to be clipped up, with Seafolly facing the front, so the sizing and price is visual from the back.
Hanger clips on bandeau styles must be placed on the inside of the swim and not pinched on the front of the cup.