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Making the Most of Your Showroom Displays

This year’s Global Shop Show offered the latest ideas in displaying merchandise.

Selling lamps and fixtures in an uncertain economic climate is hard enough, but without the right presentation it’s that much tougher. Every year, the annual Global Shop Show in Chicago presents the latest innovations for displaying and merchandising products.
      Exhibitors and designers attending the show agree that the display techniques that will be most successful at retail are those that present merchandise in dramatic ways. Creating what they called a “greater visual sensory environment” is one bankable way to attract consumers’ attention.
      Global Shop’s Visual Merchandising area was highlighted by the Revival exhibit, designed to inspire retailers. The Revival exhibit epitomized a pre-World War II look, a departure from the “Stores of the Future” motif espoused a few years back by retailers in nearly every category. The Revival motif showed a variety of integrated concepts, including environmentally friendly, durable, reusable looks with a return to hand-crafted finishes, fine art, and multi-layered theming.
      To help retailers light their displays with flair, Skokie, Ill.-based lighting manufacturer Tech Lighting showcased its newest line of low-voltage halogen lighting systems. Particularly popular were: the Inner Fire pendant, which consists of an opaque inner glass surrounded by a bowl of clear Murano glass; Prism, a clear-ribbed glass pendant; Tusk, an inverted cone glass pendant accented with three metal beads; Swivel, a highly adjustable, minimally sized head that can rotate 360 degrees around its stem and swivel 240 degrees at the elbow joint with the lamp pivoting 240 degrees.
      The company also featured the Harmony Ceiling fixture to its line of chandeliers and ceiling fixtures. Harmony offers seven hand-bendable glass-tipped 14-inch rods with a 6-inch diameter round canopy containing a 150-watt dimmable electronic transformer. Harmony is available in amber or frosted glass, and with either a Chrome or Satin Nickel finish.
      It is never too soon to plan for the holidays, which is why Ashland, Va.-based OPTI Kinetics displayed lighting designed to get consumers excited early in the selling season with a range of six-inch rotating special effects wheels. The holiday assortment of special effects ranged from stained glass windows and snowflakes to stars, Christmas bells, and Santas.When used with OPTI Kinetics’ effects projectors, the results can be eye-catching for retailers intent on displaying holiday spirit. Individual images can be projected by the retailer onto walls, ceilings, floors, window panels, and even on the sidewalk in front of the store. Retailers wanting to add extra dazzle to this effect can attract even more attention by having these images rotate through the use of motorized mirrors.
      “Intelligent lighting” (computer-controlled lighting) was the key feature at Sunrise, Fla.-based Martin Professional’s booth. The company’s new MiniMAC Maestro and ImageScan Living Light Collection targeted those retailers seeking a more dramatic approach in specialized retail lighting effects. MiniMAC Maestro has an ultra-compact automated moving head designed for high-quality projection of patterns, images, logos, and text anywhere in the store. ImageScan fixtures are capable of projecting corporate logos, promotional messages, and assorted images via a remote control.
      Creative luminaires from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based Lutrex/USA ranged from Bounty (with its swing-out frame and choice of diffusers) to the Luxor Fisherman’s lamp redesigned with new proportions for retail spaces. The com-pany’s Prisma series offers products that address a variety of applications and shielding requirements. Overall, the Lutrex line provides retail designers with greater flexibility in lighting applications and options for increased visual appeal that can accommodate a store’s most particular parameters.
      At Woodside, N.Y.-based Jesco Lighting, smaller was better. The company featured its Lumen-X Sleek and Sleek Plus fluorescent lighting systems. The Lumen-X Sleek uses energy-efficient T4 lamps (rated 16,000 hours) and offers sub-miniature fluorescent modules that provide streamlined styling and quick installation. The Lumen-X Sleek system is available in a selection of fixture lengths (6 choices up to 4 feet long) and lamp options (soft white, cool white, and daylight), as well as brilliant colors (red, blue, green, and black).
      The Sleek Plus line is made of specification-grade durable aluminum housings and a choice of distinctive enclosures. Features include a built-in electronic ballast, Plexiglas light shield, and a choice of soft white, cool white, day light, and brilliant colors for the T4 lamps.
      For specialty lighting needs, Global Shop exhibitors included Hartford, Conn.-based Capitol Light, which detailed its Lamp Replacement Program services, and Centerbrook, Conn.-based Specialty Store Lighting, which offered its capabilities as a lighting resource and provider of commercial lighting products, design services, and extensive inventory.
      Perkasie, Pa.-based Fairfield Displays & Lighting Inc. exhibited its extensive range of innovated suspended displays for all types of retail venues. Mixing suspended glass shelves and poster presentations with low-voltage lighting powered by the cables can increase the visual impact of any product.
      If all else fails, as always Global Shop showed some more adventuresome ideas that might be just the right thing for specialty retailers looking for far-from-ordinary display techniques. For example, a new miniature dancing display – named Mr. Little – was introduced by Agoura Hills, Calif.-based TubeWORKS Inc., which billed Mr. Little as a “pint-sized sales force.” The inflatable dancing puppet sits atop a small fan which moves air from the bottom up through the arms and head, creating attention-getting movement.
      Los Angeles-based DMX Music showed its DMX AXIS digital audio/video delivery system offering in-store digital music. The system will provide video and dynamic POS graphics in the near future.
      And Chatsworth, Calif.-based AVG IN-Store Interactive drew considerable attention with its audio-animatronic figures. As a new generation of POP displays, these full-motion figures bring three-dimensional life to merchandise. These audio-animatronic figures can have their programming updated via the Internet or Flash media.