We just realized that some of our products aren’t selling well. And frankly, some aren’t selling at all.
On one hand, I could let it ride out for the month, and just blame it on those products, or the market, or the time of year, or whatever.
But the reality is, that if the products aren’t selling, then I am “paying” for them to sit there, at least from the opportunity cost of the profit I could have earned from selling them. And since being a storage unit is not the purpose of a mall kiosk, something needs to change. 
So, we went through and looked at the kiosk as a whole last night. There are a lot of great things happening with the display, but definitely some gaps, as well. We evaluated everything based on:
1. Why is/isn’t this product selling?
2. What makes this display successful or not?
3. What is the overall message that is communicated to the shoppers by this arrangement of items?
4. Would people understand what this section is selling?
5. Would I personally buy these items?
6. If we improve the display, could these items do better?
7. Is this the right kind of product to have on a kiosk as anyway?
8. Does this product fit with the overall theme of our kiosk, “Treats & Treasures”?
We took everything off that was a sure “no-seller”– which had been on display for the last ten days but hadn’t generated any interest or sales. It was frustrating on one hand, to realize that the kiosk has been carrying a lot of dead weight, but it was also wonderful to do something about it, and start making plans to get products & displays matched up so we will do better overall.
There are still 18 shopping days left in December, 12 of which are before Christmas. If we move quickly, we can get our new displays working well before the weekend, which is when about 1/2 of our sales happen. With 2 pre-Christmas weekends left, plus the frenzied week before Christmas, and an additional weekend after Christmas, the time to get things improved is now.
It would be interesting to set up two kiosks, both with the same products, but one with a fabulous display/well- strategized visual merchandising plan, and the other with the items poorly represented, and then compare their sales trends. I know the difference would be amazing, but I’m wondering how amazing– would sales be doubled, tripled at the well-presented one?
Even with the improvements we’ve made since the first day, things drastically changed for some of our products. So, I’m hopeful that with some additional changes, the other products will see similar improvement.
Another challenge coming up is that the week after Christmas, holiday items won’t be as marketable, so I’m already thinking of what we’ll need to do to either push the inventory that we do have, or have a “winter holiday” enough theme that we’ll be okay for those last 6 days.
Anyone have some visual merchandising tips… for the holidays, and for kiosks? We’re looking into all of this (I love Google…), but really, your thoughts are helpful as well.
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