There is gold in this magazine’s archives

BY PETER SCHOR
Showroom specialist

Your showroom can benefit from these easily implemented merchandising ideas. I encourage you to cull through these fairly simple suggestions for merchandising your showroom and product lines to your best advantage. Some of these tips may be old hat for you. You may already do many of them, but you could pick up an idea or two -- or just get a refresher!

Cardinal Rule No. 1 for any showroom: Never cannibalize your displays! Always sell your most popular display items from warehouse stock only. For example, suppose you remove the No. 1, most popular self-rimming kitchen sink in white with all-white accessory trim and replace it with the same model, but in all red. Now just watch the decline in sales for that product. If it’s popular, leave it alone!

Display operational products. It is 100% expected that products should operate as they would in the home. For example, quarter-turn washerless lever handle faucets must be set properly, with their handles tightened and with no missing parts.

Working displays are a must for today’s plumbing wholesaler showrooms. It’s not that difficult or expensive when you are building or remodeling a showroom to raise the floor and run abs and copper tubing to the fixtures Many manufacturers have working displays available. The most popular working fixtures in plumbing wholesaler showrooms are:

• Air massage/whirlpool tubs -- Install an electric photo beam sensor (with a 60-second timer) so the tub turns on and off when someone passes by.
• Toilets -- Consumers who are spending $1,000 on a one-piece toilet want to hear how quiet it really is. Remember, your restrooms are areas where these products can be displayed. Your restrooms are an extension of your showroom.
• Showerheads -- These are very important to the consumer. A showerhead can be an impulse buy if the customer sees it in operation.
• Steam rooms -- A steam room installed inside a basic bath bay module or multiple custom shower is an extremely hot showroom product.
• Faucets -- Clients want to feel, touch and operate quarter-turn valves, and they want to see how a kitchen faucet with removable spray operates.
• Electric oil-filled towel warmers -- These take the chill out of the bathroom in the early morning, and they sell great almost anyplace in the U.S. when people see and feel them working. In humid climates, towel warmers even reduce humidity indoors.
• Water purification -- Get creative! A plumbing wholesaler in Florida installed a working purification system with a chiller unit in his showroom. He offered samples with a sign that read, “Try me -- the Fountain of Youth.” Not only are customers and consumers buying it but so is the ups delivery person, the mail carrier, reps and others who pass through the showroom.

Put on a good face
Front windows should be lit. In retail and industrial locations, your front windows should be lit up until about 10:30 p.m. every night. Consumers window shop at night. And in industrial or business areas, people who work in the area will stop by the windows on the way home. Watch some night, especially from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., when people are going to or coming from dining.

Change the window dressings. Front window displays must be changed twice a year. Isolate sales items and the budget lines from luxury lines. Sometimes just moving the products from one location to another gives the appearance of change and freshness and can increase sales, if items are in the right place.

Carry and sell it all. If you don’t display and sell items such as medicine cabinets, towel bars, magnifying mirrors, towel warmers and saunas, clients who need them will find them at places that have everything you have and more. If you are not going to handle these items, at least have a referral you can trust.

Some wholesaler showrooms keep on file the pattern and manufacturer names for wallpaper, tiles and even for towels they use in the displays. Occasionally a customer will want to recreate identically a special “look” in her home. By having this information on file, the showroom personnel can direct her in finding the right products.

Keep informed of the other major fixture lines. Although you stock and display one major plumbing fixture line, you should have complete updated catalogs and literature (color chips, etc.) on other major lines. When clients mention they are going to see what other companies have to offer, you can pull out the catalogs to save them the trip and emphasize the fact that your major fixture line has much more to offer.

It’s child’s play
Set up a children’s play area. If your showroom is frequented by parents with young children, post signs with positive messages about touching or playing with displays. Put a small children’s table and chairs near a tv with a dvd and some cartoons. Toys often do not hold a child’s attention for very long; unfortunately, faucet handles do.

Greeting room, adult comfort
Get creative. Include the following in your greeting area:

• A couch
• A coffee table with select design books/literature
• Awards hanging on the wall
• A greeter/screener type person for showrooms over 5,000 feet
• A selection of cold drinks and bottled water
• A VCR with DVDs and product videos or a piece on the company playing on a feedback loop
• A beer-and-wine faucet tap
• A massage therapist on staff.
  (Just thought I’d throw in those last two to see if you’re paying attention.)

Display your restrooms
The public restroom should be treated as an extension of the showroom. This is a working display that sells. Keep the door open and the lights on.

Include a planning table
Every showroom should have a good-sized planning table. It should be large enough for four or more people to sit down with architectural plans and make selections from the showroom.

Add impulse items
Who made the rule that plumbing wholesaler showrooms should only have items that need to be installed by the plumber? Consumers (ourselves) are certainly going to buy related products for their newly remodeled bathrooms. Consider freestanding accessories like:

• Shower and tub seats and benches
• Safety equipment (non-installation types)
• Shampoo dispensers
• Magnifying mirrors.

There are many items that are borderline, between being architectural and bath boutique products that are not sold in the bath and linen stores. Some plumbing wholesalers sell these items at high gross profits and have no competition. Great example: Allied Brass makes a wide range of freestanding towel stands, bedspread holders, valet stands, and other accessories in a variety of finishes. I know showrooms that work through the plumbing and builder trades that sell the “heck” out of these items for msrp -10% and sold on the consumer’s credit card.

There is ‘gold’ in the archives
Some of the greatest tips and secrets for successful showrooms are in The Wholesaler’s archives of past showroom articles. Just click on www.thewholesaler.com and go to the archives section. Here are just a few “juicy” things that you will find:

• October 2006 -- "Product niche marketing." Find out how you can fine tune your product brand offering so you have some exclusive, semi-exclusive or other lines not available at your competitors’ showrooms.
• November 2006 -- "Showroom upgrade program for tract housing." Find out how to create a proven tract upgrade program where the plumber, builder, consumer, you, your outside salesman and the consumer win!
• February 2007 -- "The essentials of time management." Simple and proven tips to save precious time in your plumbing/bath wholesaler showroom. Industry-specific time savers are in the article.
• May 2007 -- "Exceptional tool to increase sales volume and gross profits." Find out how to develop a showroom quotation "long form" that will help you sell bigger packages and greatly shorten the selection time. This is an excellent way to conceal individualized line item pricing and sell packages.
• August 2007 -- "Driving high traffic to your showroom." This is a proven and very effective way to target all of the bath/plumbing specifying and buying trades in your market to your showroom. Numerous plumbing wholesaler showrooms have sent me notes of appreciation on this one.
• September 2007 -- "Driving qualified consumer traffic to your showroom." This is a great, proven way to target and drive qalified resale home consumers to your showroom.
• January 2008 -- “Making 2008 your best year ever." How many of the 33 tips have you implemented into your showroom sales thrust in 2008? It is never too late to do so. Go to the article and see tips No. 2 and No. 3. Showrooms around the U.S. are cashing in on these gems!
• February 2008 -- "A showroom that succeeds -- from the inside out." Did you really read the article and grasp all the “inside-out" tips?

Please keep the e-mails coming on the problems, challenges and obstacles that you would like solved in your showroom. If there are some topics that you would like me to address, please send me an e-mail.

Peter Schor, president of Dynamic Results, Inc., is an educator, motivational speaker, consultant, coach and writer in our industry and many diverse others. For the past 17 years, he has conducted 100 educational programs annually, including 34 industry conventions. Schor has great expertise in the field of showrooms and has won many industry awards. He also works with manufacturers in the field of sales, marketing and public relations. Schor can be reached at 1491 Ivy Arbor, Lincoln, CA 95648, phone 916/408-5346, fax 916/408-5899, e-mail pschor@dynamicresultsinc.com or through his website at www.dynamicresultsonline.com.