TRAID STORE VISIT
-As part of our Pop-Up store research, we visited a Traid store to understand how it was merchandised, what products were sold where, and what we liked about the stores. I visited the Shepherds Bush Store along with a few others to carry out some primary research.
The Shepherds Bush store is one of the largest stores and stocks quality second-hand clothes, designer labels, shoes and accessories for both woman and men at affordable prices as well as children’s clothes also. Shepherds Bush has a lot of vintage and premium items from the categories so I would say their target is those who may have a little more disposable income as the price points are higher than a standard charity shop.
Although the clothes were from the premium category, the merchandising of the clothes wasn’t that great. The mannequins in the window were dressed in an edgy and creative way but the windows lacked anything other than the two mannequins. The in-store experience wasn’t that great either, we weren't greeted or asked if we needed help, like we would be in a normal High-Street store, which put us off staying in there any longer than we needed to. Although something to consider is that we first arrived when the store had just opened so it could have been down to staff shortage and having other jobs to do at the time.
For VM improvements, the Traid store could off added props, like boxes, tables, plinths etc to create levels and diversity. Around the store there was also some writing about some of the shocking facts about fashion production, but they were printed quite small and could have been a bit bigger. The store also didn’t have a very clear layout in regards to pathways and walkway which could be quite confusing for the customer.
For our own Pop-Up event, we could take some of the instore elements to incorporate. At the till there were Traid leaflets for customers to take which we could do also. We could also have donation pots at the till point. We could also use the Traid store to improve our Pop-Up, for example, having clear pathways, which the Traid store didn’t have. We could also have more mannequins around the store to engage customers to browse further.
To make our store appeal to the demographic], we should advertise on social media strongly, as people our age use it all the time. As well we should make our store interactive and fun with a modern playlist and our mannequins styled as on trend as possible, similar to that of a high-street store. We could also create a snapchat Geofilter, which the 18-24 demographic use all the time. So, whenever anyone is in our pop-up and take a snapchat, they can add there Traid Pop-Up Geofilter and advertise it for us to their followers.