The buying habits of today’s consumers are very different than they were just 10 years ago. Imagine, for example, that a woman teacher in her early 30s is thinking about buying a new camera. Will she find the time in her busy schedule to visit a camera shop and talk to a store associate about the benefits of each brand, or is she more likely to do her research online and make a purchase with just a couple of clicks? More and more, research is showing that people are choosing the latter.
So how do retailers get people into their brick and mortar locations? By improving in-store experiences!
Online shopping may continue to grow in popularity, but will never be able to provide consumers with the tactile sensory experience of visiting a physical location. Of course, some consumers would say that’s a good thing because visiting a retail store can easily turn into a negative experience for one reason or another. But when a store gets it right – when they give consumers what they can’t get online—it helps keep their doors open.
There are a myriad of ways retailers can improve in-store experiences, but today we’re going to focus on just one: touch and feel displays.
What Are Touch and Feel Displays?
Think back to the busy woman shopping for a camera. What would be her main incentive for visiting a physical store before purchasing? Probably the chance to actually hold different cameras and play with the features, right?
Touch and feel displays allow consumers to do just that!
Typically created by a plastic fabricator for a specific application, touch and feel displays are interactive retail displays that allow consumers to—you guessed it—touch and feel a product while they’re in the store. They can house any type of product that consumers would likely want to try before buying, from makeup compacts and brushes to cameras and smartphones.
Benefits of Touch and Feel Displays
● Attract and Engage Customers
Touch and feel displays are inviting by nature and encourage experimentation. When a product is unboxed and available for customers to demo, people who are interested in purchasing that product—as well as those who weren’t even searching for that specific product—will pick up the item to try it out.
● Allow Customers to Compare Brands
Though we know many consumers these days have done some research ahead of time online before heading to a physical store, being able to interact with the same type of product from a variety of manufacturers in-store makes people feel like they’re getting a more accurate comparison.
On the flip side, if a touch and feel display houses products from only one manufacturer, that helps the brand stand out from the competition.
● Increase Sales
Allowing customers to interact with your products is one of the best ways to secure a sale. In an interview with Drug Store News, Paulette Heller, Vice President of Marketing at Conair, said the company found touch and feel displays “can increase sales by about 20 percent to 30 percent.”
Online shopping is growing more popular by the day, but so is consumers’ demand for more information about the products they buy. Using touch and feel displays to show off your products is a smart way to improve the in-store experience while boosting sales.
Contact Us for Custom Touch and Feel Displays
Cottage Corporation is a full-service manufacturer of custom plastic parts and retail displays. When you partner with us, we handle every aspect of your project, from concept to assembly. Our interactive retail displays offer engagement for prospective buyers while maintaining a perfect presentation. Contact us today to get started!