Tips for Choosing the Right Material & Finish for Retail Fixtures

There’s a lot that goes into understanding what motivates someone who visits your store to make a purchase. Much of it involves the sensory experience they have while in your retail location and visual appeal is a tremendous part of this. Visual merchandising is important, but it goes further than just carefully arranging merchandise on your shelves. Effective merchandising starts with retail fixtures that perfectly showcase your merchandise and align with the overall image of your brand.
When considering retail shelving options, you want to look for quality construction and chose the right material and finishing options for your retail space. Here is a quick guide to choosing the right material, color and finish for your retail display cases.

Choose Materials That Make Sense for Your Merchandise

The first thing you need to consider is what type of merchandise you’re going to be displaying on your fixtures. A finish that clashes with the merchandise is going to feel awkward and uninviting to your customers. For instance, a rich natural finish like Victorian Cherry is going to look and feel completely out of place in an auto parts store. Likewise, you probably don’t want to display cashmere scarfs on a fixture that is too industrial looking.

Fragile and Valuable Merchandise

If you’re displaying merchandise that needs to be protected from constant customer handling, you’ll want to invest in secure display cases that highlight your merchandise while keeping it safe at the same time.
Valuable merchandise, like jewelry, electronics or higher end accessories, shouldn’t need to compete with their shelving. Secure cases that are constructed with smash resistant glass, lighting that highlights the merchandise and a subtle finish like brushed metal or antique white are perfect for helping higher end merchandise shine.

Maintenance

Finally, you’ll want to think about the level of maintenance different materials will require and whether you’ll be able, or even want, to commit a significant amount of time to keeping your fixtures looking nice. For instance, a natural finish for merchandise in a high traffic area that gets lots of touching is low maintenance choice. Metals or dark finishes with a luster are more likely to show fingerprints and smudges while lighter finishes will show dirt from foot traffic faster.
When it comes to retail display cases that feature glass, durability becomes an even bigger factor. Standard display glass can chip easily and crack when enough pressure is placed on it. This can present a danger for both your customers and your staff. Lexan glass, which is clear, nearly indestructible, and elegant looking is often a better choice for retail display needs.

Purchase High Quality Retail Fixtures

You have lots of options to consider when choosing your retail shelving options – probably more than you realize. We’d like to introduce you to our prebuilt and custom display fixtures and talk to you about the materials and finishes that are going to look wonderful in your retail location for years to come. We invite you to contact Jahabow and let one of our retail shelving experts help you find the right merchandising solutions for your store.