Proper merchandising can help stimulate sales. The key is to give your store a fresh appearance to your customers. You should change items weekly or at the least every 2 weeks.

Many customers follow the same path every time they visit the store. By moving items, customers may see items that have been in other locations. The front area needs to be changed first.

By rearranging the front displays, you will give the appearance of continually having new merchandise. Here are some merchandising suggestions.

1. Make Racks / Displays full and remove any that you can. Studies have shown that having an easy to shop open areas will increase sales than more racks/tables with cluttered areas. Open areas with displays bunched up. Less merchandise with more space can result in increase sales.

2. You should go section by section to see what items you should get rid of. You should replace the bottom 10-20% of your product lines yearly and order new product lines to replace them. Mark down the poor selling product lines to half off to get rid of them.

3. Having too many impulse items on the counter. This makes it hard for customers to focus on the items. Just have a couple items by the main checkout areas. You could have a table or section in the store for additional impulse items.

4. Clearance items should be back of the store. You want to make customers go through some of your best items first.

5. End caps should have 1-3 items on them. If you have too many items, it is difficult for the customer to focus on any particular item. The merchandising should be vertical instead of horizontal whenever possible. This gives a better chance of your customers seeing all your items. You should have more items if it is a theme such as Thanksgiving. However, keep the theme ends limited.

6. Allocate space by profitability and sales and not by inventory level.