Choosing Garment Racks and Other Retail Displays

There are so many decisions to make when you are stocking a retail store. This article can be used as a guide to determine which garment racks and store displays will work best for your store. We will consider your merchandise, longevity of the products and the space you have available when you make your final decisions.

Use a manufacturer of store displays that has a proven track record of service and quality. Do not sacrifice quality for gimmicks like free shipping, major store display and garment rack suppliers offer this anyway. Using one supplier for most of your store display needs will make things easier. If you determine that what you ordered was not exactly right for your store, you can return it and exchange it for something else that the supplier offers.

If the supplier is also the manufacturer, then you will get better prices and usually a higher selection of quality products to choose from. You can generally assume that the quality of one item from the manufacturer will match the quality of other clothing racks and store displays that they sell. For example, if you get a beautiful wooden garment rack from your supplier that seems like you could throw it from a building and it would be okay, and then you order a vintage style garment rack from the same company, you should be able to assume that it will not have sharp corner, rickety legs and shotty construction.

Make drawings to determine the most efficient and pleasing configuration of displays for your store. Play around with different types of garment racks to suit your needs. If you want more open space or have a big inventory for your available space, consider using wall displays to maximize the area. Gridwall and slatwall are great for displaying and help you design a lot of display configurations.

Weigh the costs of each design that you like. You do not necessarily want to go with what is cheapest. Weigh the life expectancy of each item and determine if the need to replace it may make it more expensive than the higher quality option. Plus, if you end up with wobbly, badly designed racks, you will have wasted all of that time and money, while making a bad impression on your customers. Not only that, but sharp edges are dangerous and could be a liability for you. They can also snag clothing and make you lose money on inventory. Shotty construction could fall over and injure someone. There are a lot of reasons to choose high quality garment racks.

Quality displays that properly display your merchandise without cluttering your store can establish a favorable brand image for your retail store. Good clothing racks and displays can help you make more money, establish a good customer opinion and protect you from possible liability.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Manager of Only Garment Racks, a leading online resource for garment racks and clothing racks. Only Garment Racks is recognized for the excellent quality and value of its garment rack and clothing rack offerings. For more information, please visit http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.

Creating a lighting scheme is an important part of designing your retail store. There are a lot of points to consider when you are making this decision, so make sure that you do not neglect to analyze each point before you install.

Fluorescent lights are the cheapest you can get. The fixtures and bulbs are inexpensive to buy, install and maintain. Fluorescent lights are good for lighting up big warehouses and stores where lighting will not be used to showcase items, draw attention to promotions or reduce the risk of theft. If this does not sound like it would suit your store, consider using as much natural light as possible to keep lighting bills down. Halogen and LED lights also use very little energy.

Spotlighting is very effective for drawing attention to neglected areas of a store or showcasing a promotion. Analyze places where you envision promotional tables, racks or showcase walls. Make sure that you install spotlights or hanging lights in these areas so that you can draw attention when needed. You may even put these lights on a dimmer, so that when you do have a big promotion, you can increase the lighting in a particular area. Remember to incorporate a lot of lighting options in your front windows or window display cases. Sometimes you may want it to be darker with just one spotlight. You may want a series of mannequins to be spotlighted, or you may want the whole display lit up like the outdoors.

Use lighting to deter theft. This can be very important, so consider all of these points when determining how to use lighting to reduce shoplifting in your store. Studies have shown over and over again how comfortable people are when they shoplift in a darker area. Poorly lit corners are where a thief will go to steal from your store. Eliminate them by using spotlights and reflective materials in this area.

Sometimes all you need is a small lamp to illuminate an area. Corners that are hidden from the view of your cashier should have very harsh lighting and mirrors. Bright lights and mirrors make people a lot more nervous about shoplifting than they would normally be. Even stores with adequate lighting, cameras and mirrors are at risk if their dressing rooms are not properly lit. Spotlights in particular, no matter how small, are shown to give people the impression that they are being watched.

The next tip in lighting design is to maximize the lighting impact by using a lot of reflective materials in your store. Strategically place mirrors and chrome clothing racks where lights can bounce off of them and bring more light to darker areas. These strategies can almost double the amount of light in a store without running up the power bill. Reflective surfaces can be used on your dressing room doors, counter tops and walls as well.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Manager of Only Garment Racks, a leading online resource for garment racks and clothing racks. Only Garment Racks is recognized for the excellent quality and value of its garment rack and clothing rack offerings. For more information, please visit http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.

Marketing Impact and Safety of Retail Garment Racks

Your retail store garment racks help you to display your inventory. Decisions that you make concerning your garment racks and other store displays can be important when it comes to making a good impression, protecting clothing inventory and protecting yourself from liability.

Some retail stores choose the cheapest garment racks they can find because they do not stop to think about how the quality of the rack will affect them. The garment rack needs to reflect the quality of your retail store, and here is why. People use their impressions of your equipment, lighting, cleanliness and other factors to assess the quality of the products that you offer. If the garment rack is unstable, not level, squeaky or looks like it could fall apart at any second, it will quickly become the focus and could become the reason that the customer thinks your store is of low quality.

The lower quality garment racks can also pose many dangers and can make you liable for injury. Children especially are hard on clothing racks. They love to play around inside of circular garment racks and often hang or climb on them. If the clothing rack breaks and the clothes fall on a child, they could suffocate. They could also be hurt by falling or by the heavy rack falling on top of them. Some racks have sharp edges that can cut customers as they walk by. They can also snag clothing and cause you to lose money on inventory and inventory replacement. Plus you have the cost of periodically replacing broken racks.

High quality garment racks have very sturdy construction. Swivel garment racks should not squeak, stick, vibrate or squeal. The bars should have a strong enough finish that they do not scratch easily or rust. Scratched up bars are not only an eyesore, but also can make your hangers stick and become hard to move. The hangers could also start to make that metal on metal sound that nearly everyone avoids. High quality chrome finishes slide smoothly and withstand a lot of use. Purchasing high quality garment racks also ensures that you do not have sharp edges exposed, posing a liability.

High quality garment racks are a good investment for a number of reasons. Drawing the eye and making a good impression is the main goal of any display, but ensuring the safety of your customers and improving their shopping experience can pay off in other ways. High quality garment racks will help you to make that good impression and give you the peace of mind that you need when you are the one responsible for making this decision.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Manager of Only Garment Racks, a leading online resource for garment racks and clothing racks. Only Garment Racks is recognized for the excellent quality and value of its garment rack and clothing rack offerings. For more information, please visit http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.

Clothing Racks for your Retail Store

Your clothing rack and hanger choices could have more of an impact on your retail brand than you may realize. Lighting, store fixtures, logos and signs all have an influence on what your customers think and feel. Customers draw conclusions about your store quality using the impressions that they get as they go through your store.

Store fixtures say a lot about the quality of your products and your store. Things like counter displays and garment racks show how much time, effort and care you took in showcasing your inventory. You may think that clothing rack and store fixture quality has much bearing on your brand image, but it really does, more than you may think.

For example, if someone comes into your store and starts sifting through your inventory, they form an opinion. If the garment racks are shaky and seem to be falling apart, that reflects on you. If your racks are packed tight with clothes where you cannot see what is there, then who is going to bother digging through it? Tangled hangers, broken plastic hangers or shotty metal clips that tear and damage clothes all make you look cheap and like you do not care. Or even worse, it can look like you cannot afford any better, so something must be wrong with your store. Customers will draw conclusions about your quality by assessing the quality of the items surrounding them.

Using nicer hangers and clothing racks keeps your store from looking cluttered. Studies have shown that people who see wooden hangers or interesting displays automatically assume that the store quality is higher. They are willing to spend more money on the merchandise from these stores because they assume that the quality of the clothing is higher as well.

Nice hangers not only make a good impression on your customers, they help protect your inventory, too. Investing in high quality hangers is not as big of an expense as you might think. Hangers made from wood or satin do not snag or stretch delicate fabrics. They stay slightly separated making it easier for customers to find sizes and prices. They make the overall impression of your store a more positive one.

Higher quality store displays, like wood hangers and garment racks, are the backbone of your store image. When a customer is shopping in your store, you are essentially promising them a high quality product. When they look around and see what there is to offer, they are assessing whether or not they can trust that promise. Image is important and quality can help save you a lot of money in the long run. By giving your customers that extra boost in trust, they can feel more confident in paying higher prices for your merchandise.

Consider all of these things when you stock your store with hangers, garment racks and other retail store displays.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Manager of Only Garment Racks, a leading online resource for garment racks and clothing racks. Only Garment Racks is recognized for the excellent quality and value of its garment rack and clothing rack offerings. For more information, please visit http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.

Increasing Your Storage Options

If you’re lucky, your house is large enough to designate one room, usually a guest bedroom, for all those items that are not used on a daily basis, yet are useful enough (are they really?) to keep them hanging around. How many of us have at least one room or closet in our house designated for overflow? Often this room is in complete disarray due to the copious amount of clothes and other items that seem to find their way there, yet are never put away or organized; a very real, “I’ll get to it later” sort of room. Today is the day to organize that room. Organizing that mess will undoubtedly allow for less wasted time spent searching within its walls and help to liberate the room from being used as only a “junk room”, once everything has found a proper place.

Organization is key. Organization just makes good sense, but eludes the best of us due to the initial investment of time and energy it demands. True enough, four walls and a floor alone do not offer many storage options other than piling. Piling is exactly what got you into this mess, and it’s time to take the bull by the horns. A shelving unit can be very affordable and readily purchased from a big box store or online and assembled using very minimal tools. Having shelves to place objects that make their way into this room or should make their way into this room would be invaluable. Perhaps your storage room will have a double life, a new life as a sort of chore room, with shelving and a desk dedicated to sewing on buttons or repairing zippers. Perhaps a craft room or home office can spring forth as well, once the organizing ball starts rolling. Once everything is off the ground, all sorts of space can open up; could a treadmill fit in the corner? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. What to do with all those clothes? A rolling garment rack, perhaps even a collapsible one would do the trick. Hanging those clothes on a clothes rack will help keep them easily accessible, even providing a spot for extra drying and airing out after washing and drying them. A garment rack could help provide a more organized “holding area” for finished clothes, allowing family members to simply check the rack when looking for a particular item instead of constantly asking you or your spouse where it might be.

With only a few organizational tools like a clothes rack, shelving, and a desk, new storage and maybe more importantly, new usage of your storage room could possibly inspire new hobbies while organizing your home life a little better in the process!

About the author: Jon Bassfarm is an Internet content writer who enjoys researching and writing about many subjects including garment racks, clothing racks, landscaping, and much more.

Keeping Little Ones’ Rooms Picked Up and Looking Great

If you have a growing family or have ever visited friends that have small children, you undoubtedly have noticed the house is often a sea of children’s clothes, toys, and accessories. While keeping all of the children’s accoutrements in their respective rooms goes a long way towards clearing clutter out of common areas, how in the world can you keep their rooms organized and looking their best? With the right organizational tools, your house, and yes, your children’s rooms can be relatively clutter-free, allowing for space to play and enjoy those toys on a daily basis.

While bookshelves do wonders for organizing and keeping children’s bedtime books up and out of the way of little (and big) feet, they are usually packed to the gills and not the best for storing plastic and wooden toys and games. Cubes are great organizational tools, and making them can be a fun and easy project you and your children can attempt together, even on a relatively small budget. Of course, you could run down to your local IKEA or other sort of department store, spending a bundle on pre-made shelving and cubes, but why not make it more fun for everyone? All you need is plywood, nails (or Gorilla Glue or Liquid Nails), a skill saw, and a hammer, and you’re in business. Assuming you possess even the most basic of math skills, cutting and assembling cubes for toy storage is achievable without an engineering degree or journeyman carpenter status.

Now for those mountains of children’s clothes! Dressers and chests of drawers are fantastic for foldable, storable clothing items such as undergarments, sleepers, and t-shirts, but those items that demand hanging need appropriate organization as well. Closets are great for hanging clothes and shoes inside, keeping items out of the way and off the ground. Often however, children are delegated to rooms that might not have a closet, such as a library or home office, when a family expands outside the parameters of their home. In this case, a garment rack can be an excellent tool to place in the corner of a child’s room to alleviate the need of a missing clothes closet. Garment racks are often mobile as well, having wheels for easy placement and movement within your house, from laundry room to kid’s rooms, etc.

Organizing your house can be difficult, but is unfortunately a necessary evil with all of the things a growing family can accumulate over a given year. With the right tools, organization may not be exactly a snap, but definitely doable!

About the author: Jon Bassfarm is an Internet content writer who enjoys researching and writing about many subjects including garment racks, clothing racks, landscaping, and much more.

Liven up Your Yard Sale By Displaying Items More Effectively

As the holidays approach and inclement weather begins, many Americans find their houses growing smaller as they acquire new items for gifts, unpack their winter gear, and purchase new wardrobe accessories for the coming colder weather. Changes of season are excellent occasions for a good closet and storage cleansing, but what to do with the items and clothes you’ve outgrown or have no need for anymore? You could always donate them to charity or give them away to friends, but in the dire state of the U.S. economy, why not try and capitalize on your unneeded items with a good old-fashioned garage or yard sale?

I know what you’re thinking. Yard sales are a lot of work, a big hassle, and no one ever comes, right? Well maybe, just maybe, you’ve been going about things in the wrong way. First off, yard sales are not about junk, but about hidden treasures, so give your junk away and only try and sell good quality items that just aren’t your cup of tea anymore. Advertising is something that is all too often overlooked. Once you have set a date for your big sale, you should post a bit about it in the local classifieds or craigslist to give lookie-loos and bargain shoppers a heads-up. Saturdays and Sundays are the best days to ply your wares as most people are off work and looking for an activity, and what could be better than finding good buys when cash is short? Displaying your items in an attractive fashion should never be underestimated. Whether selling in a retail environment or in your favorite cul-de-sac, organization and display can go a long way. If you have a large amount of hanging clothes you are trying to unload, a great way to organize and display them would be a garment rack. You might have one on hand already, but if not, one can be purchased for not too large an investment and could possibly mean the difference between selling three shirts and thirty-three shirts. Shoppers will have no trouble thumbing through your various hanging separates, shorts, shirts, and pants alike when they are grouped together on a rack rather than in a muddled clump on your lawn. After the big sale, you could either dismantle your clothing rack or better yet, utilize it in your laundry room or walk-in closet for year-round storage and organization.

With adequate organization and attractive display tactics, you will be exceedingly elated as your load of “stuff” grows lighter and lighter. Making extra cash from selling to your neighbors is also a great way to raise some funds for those upcoming holiday spending sprees, so good luck, and sell, sell, sell!

About the author: Jon Bassfarm is an Internet content writer who enjoys researching and writing about many subjects including garment racks, clothing racks, landscaping, and much more.

Straightening Up That Laundry Room Mess

When giving a tour of your home to visitors and friends, the room most probably avoided and excluded from showing is the laundry room. Let’s face it, though arguably one of the most important rooms in the house, the laundry room often gets undue attention. The laundry room is often used for storage of all sorts (if you’re lucky to have one large enough), cleaning products and laundry soap are scattered throughout, clothes in cue for folding are in disarray, and some laundry rooms are home to the cat litter box and many other undesirable necessities. How can a person or their family expect to look their best when the room where their clothes are given their beauty treatments is such a disorganized and unappealing mess?

Now the cat box and other unmentionables are your own business, but let’s get those clothes organized, shall we? First thing needed in your laundry room is a folding table. You are lucky enough to have laundry facilities in your home, don’t treat it less amiably than you would your local Laundromat. A table to fold and stack your clothes on is simply acquired and affordable, just check your local white elephant shop for one that fits your space best. Secondly, a garment rack is in order. You can’t very well stack your outfits that are meant for hanging and expect them to come out looking spic and span, now can you? A simple rod can be suspended fairly easy in the corner, or a nice rolling rack can be purchased at a local retailer or even online from a site such as onlygarmentracks.com. Being able to store your hanging clothes properly while they wait to be worn or simply await transport to your closet would add immeasurably to your ability to look your best. Third, a nice shelving unit would help with organizing your assorted detergents, bleaches, and fabric softener for easy use and storage. No more will your cleaning agents be spread throughout the room, all the time threatening to create a mess or sticky spill on your precious clothes or laundry room floor. A simple sweep and pickup will add the finishing touches. See how easy that was? With a few simple additions, your laundry room can be an organized area you can be prouder (if not exactly “proud”) of, and you’ll find the flow of the chores that find their home within will be easier and quicker than ever!

About the author: Jon Bassfarm is an Internet content writer who enjoys researching and writing about many subjects including garment racks, clothing racks, landscaping, and much more.

Ironing Dress Pants and Keeping Them That Way

Hiring out for laundry service is expensive and unnecessary once you have the right tools and techniques in place in your household. Today, the focus will be on keeping dress pants wrinkle-free and storing them so they will look their best each time you wear them.

A first purchase would have to be an iron. Most irons are very similar with some possessing extra safety features such as automatic shutoff, a helpful addition for busy lifestyles. While shopping for an iron, you might as well pick up an ironing board while you’re there; they are quite inexpensive and do a better job than the dining room table, while being quite a bit more durable and resistant to the scalding heat of your iron. After getting home with your purchases, set up your ironing board, adjusting its height to your liking. It always serves you well to read instructions of all home appliances, so take the time to read your iron’s instruction booklet, especially if this is your first. After perusing your iron’s instruction booklet, you will most likely want to fill it accordingly with water and plug it into a nearby outlet. Make sure you have adequate slack in the electrical cord for ironing activity, and its cord extends out of the path of your foot traffic or your family’s. Check the instruction tag inside the waistband of your pants. There is often a designated temperature for ironing and other tips for proper care of the pants. Some pants have tags that proclaim, “do not iron”; if so, don’t. Set your iron to the recommended temperature and allow it adequate time to warm up, making sure it is resting on its stand or heel, as not to burn or scald the ironing board. After the iron has warmed up, lay your pants on the ironing board lengthwise, with one leg on top of the other. The pants should be folded perfectly in half to ensure the success of this process. Fold one leg up and over the waist, leaving the bottom leg exposed and ready for ironing. Iron this exposed leg, working your way down from top to bottom, slowly, in a circular motion, making sure to steam out the wrinkles. You can place a towel on top of the leg, if so desired, to make sure the pant leg is protected from the direct heat of the iron. After finishing the bottom leg, fold the top leg back over, making sure the inseams of the legs match up, and iron it in the same fashion. Turn the pants over, and repeat the process for the other side of each leg.

You have now successfully ironed your dress pants, but if you’re not going to wear them immediately, storage will be an issue. Specially designed hangers are available to keep those wrinkles out and avoid the middle crease made by cheap wire hangers. Choose your hanger, and neatly hang your pants lengthwise; your pants will be wrinkle-free and ready to wear when you need them.

About the Author: Ron Maier is Chief Executive Officer of onlygarmentracks.com, leading provider of garment racks and clothing racks. For information go to www.onlygarmentracks.com.

Making Your Closet “Livable” Again

Do you ever look in your closet and have trouble deciding what to wear on a given day? Let’s try that again, everyone has trouble deciding, but do you have trouble finding what you want to wear? Organization goes a long way, in life and in closets. If you’re like most Americans, the floor of your closet is covered with assorted overflow: mismatched shoes, neckties, hats, etc. All of these articles need to be picked up, organized, and displayed in such a way so that you will actually pick them and wear them. If they’re not pickable or wearable, get them outta there!

After emptying your closet of the articles that don’t have a mate, are extremely tattered and unwearable, or just don’t belong, it’s time to get to the real business at hand: organization. Though some of the reason your closet is in such disarray might be attributed to pure laziness, much of it is probably due to apathy and purely a feeling of “where do I begin?” Let’s begin by getting all of those horrible free, flimsy, and somewhat useless dry cleaner wire hangers out of your closet. These hangers are prone to spilling their contents to the closet floor because of their poor design and overall weak tensile strength. Hangers have come a long way, are more affordable than ever, and are essential to keeping your clothes off the floor and wrinkle-free. Hangers come in all shapes and sizes, and there is a perfectly sized and designed hanger for every article of clothing in your closet. Assorted hangers, usually for sale in multiples but available in singles as well, are readily available online or at brick and mortar retailers near you. A good way to arrive at the styles of hangers necessary to bring your closet back to life is to take a look at its contents. Do you have a lot of slacks or dress pants that need to be organized? Multi-pant hangers that can hold four or more pair at a time might be for you. Is your tie collection most often spread all over the closet floor? Vertical hangers just for ties are available that at the same time save you space and display your ties appealingly so that you can find the particular one you want when you need it. There are even hangers for all those pesky belts that seem to make it to the closet floor as well.

So we’ve arrived at a conclusion, the real reason your closet is unlivable is you don’t have the tools necessary to keep it breathing. A small investment in hangers and closet organizational accessories is just the remedy to resuscitate that closet of yours and breathe life into your wardrobe again!

About the Author: Ron Maier is Chief Executive Officer of onlygarmentracks.com, leading provider of garment racks and clothing racks. For information go to www.onlygarmentracks.com.