The biggest and best retailers in America use Visual Merchandising to help them ring up billions of dollars in sales every year. Yet, surprisingly, most retail automobile dealers have not embraced this tried and true sales and profit-boosting technique.

Visual merchandising is the art of changing the atmosphere of your showroom to create a buying environment that creates urgency in the mind of the customer. By using specially designed point-of-purchase materials, companies like: Wal-Mart, Macy's , Kroger, Circuit City, Starbucks, Walgreens, McDonalds, Sears, and thousands more generate billions of dollars in additional sales by motivating their customers to buy now. Visual stimuli like posters, banners, pennants, price tags, window clings, badges, and balloons, used together in a coordinated effort, can help you create a credible and compelling atmosphere that will turn shoppers into buyers.

The same customers who will visit your dealership this week will have visited an average of over 1,500 retail businesses since the last time they shopped for a car. After over 1,500 visits to other retailers, a majority of whom use visual merchandising, these customers know what a real sale looks like. Research proves that unless your dealership showroom sings out to them, qualified customers will leave without buying.

When your customer's first impression is, Wow! It looks like something special is happening here today. My timing must be right, their likelihood of buying increases 100%. The fact is, when shoppers truly believe they are in the right place at the right time, to take advantage of a unique opportunity- they will buy on the spot.

Visual merchandising is proven to be the least expensive, most effective way to increase average daily sales and average dollars per transaction.

Don't make the mistake of confusing advertising with visual merchandising. Advertising acts as an invitation for customers to visit your dealership. Visual merchandising is the effort you make to create an atmosphere that will positively affect that customer's attitude when they respond to your advertising.

Most dealers are quicker to spend thousands of dollars trying to create more foot traffic than they are to spend pennies on the dollar creating a buying atmosphere in their showroom. Spending money on advertising alone, without good visual merchandising, is like spending $5,000 on the invitation and nothing on the party.

Automobile dealers who use visual merchandising to create short-term special events at their dealerships can easily measure a 10 to 20 percent increase in sales and gross profits during a 3 to 4 day sale. This is a great return on a small investment compared to the thousands of dollars most dealers spend weekly on advertising.

Thousands of exit surveys support the fact that a change of atmosphere convinces customers that they are fortunate to be in the right place, at the right time, to take advantage of a unique buying opportunity. Salespeople also respond positively to the change, and they get excited about the opportunity to sell more vehicles during the event.

Visual merchandising can be very effective on its own, even without advertising. However, if you tie your advertising into your visual merchandising display at your dealership you can expect even better, instant, and measurable results.

The Toland Group, Inc. specializes in automotive marketing. For more information contact Scott Toland toll-free at 888-4Toland.

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