Retail Strategies + Cross-Collaboration, Grand Junction

Grand Junction Convention Center

June 14, 2024 | 8:00-11:00 AM

 OVERVIEW

Good retail displays and digital messaging are essential to build brand awareness and drive more sales. Visual and messaging cues create an emotional connection with the customer that inspires them to bring a little piece of your product, or brand, home. Give your customers a curated shopping experience from your online messaging to your window displays with unique communications and ideas for collaboration.

On June 14, 2024 Downtown Grand Junction was pleased to partner with Downtown Colorado, Inc. (DCI) to showcase a retail workshop to share practical ideas for expanding the reach of your brand through visual and messaging cues to convey your brand experience and tell stories with digital and visual displays. The workshop featured experts in communicating the brand, retail merchandising, and downtown retail partnerships.

 INTRODUCTIONS

As part of the introductions, all participants shared their names, community, and business. The group included retailers from all areas with books, games, spiritual objects, pottery, and flowers, to clothing for recreational outerwear, women, and babies. The group was interested in exploring marketing, social media, and online sales, inventory management and merchandising, creative displays and selling techniques. Some specific goals the group shared was to increase average ticket sales, attracting foot traffic, planning for the off season, training employees at retail stores and in frontline positions at the gas stations or grocery stores, and finding time to consider the big picture.

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

The workshop kicked off with a discussion of partnerships that reduce costs, foster creativity, and increase exposure. The focus of the discussion was to explore collaboration for mutual benefit of businesses within the downtown district. The diversity of retail allowed for a rich discussion around partnerships that can help grow average ticket sales, support business through different times of year, and strategize around strategies for workforce and employee training.

The Understanding Your Audience presentation, highlighted patterns in customer behaviors that retailers can use to their advantage. Reviewing how to improve customer flow, maximize retail space, and implement inventory and point of sale management systems.  The discussion was useful in considering ways to structure the employee sightline, manage discounts, and what are the best grab and go items.

Our Creating Pathways discussion explored the tools businesses can use to guide customers through the retailer’s brand vision in both the physical and digital realm. The group walked through ideas for wholesale and experiential activations to use space to create experiences. And finally we explored ways to create effective displays using everyday materials to create affordable and attractive displays to tell the retailer’s story.

IDEAS FOR MOVING FORWARD

The workshop yielded some great ideas to enhance the retail experience in Downtown Grand Junction.  A key idea was to review and assess events to understand the timing and whether the event is meant to build the community image, foster a downtown habit, or to support the retail stores. Aligning the events with the seasonal needs of businesses would increase the impact of events in strengthening the business community.

Another key idea was establishing cross-collaboration between businesses such as a potter and a florist, a board game store and a book seller, and linking all of the fun retailers with the thriving restaurant community. The businesses could also partner on training efforts to expand options for employees to learn, and expand training for would-be employees to explore working in the retail environment.

Following the classroom event, presenters went and visited several of the participant stores and discussed specific ideas. There was great energy and our team enjoyed some retail therapy!

CHOREOGRAPHERS + PRESENTERS 

KAT CORRELL
Chief Catalyst | Resource Choreographer
Kat is an innovative and creative strategist, who serves as a resource choreographer for local governments, non-profits, and private businesses hoping to achieve more with less. She brings broad experience from forming co-operatives of rural women, initiating local government strategic reforms, expanding professional development and volunteer networks, and spanning the fields of outreach and engagement, community and economic development, not-for-profit administration, strategic planning and logic frameworks, project development and management, local government planning, marketing and communications, financial and economic development services, and education.

HANNAH GILMORE
Creative Designer | Curated Experience Creator | Visual Merchandising Expert | Stylist
With over 13 years of experience in various design fields, Hannah is a designer passionate about creating curated and immersive brand environments that connect with customers and communicate the brand’s values and identity. She recently led the design and execution of Smartwool’s brand environments, including retail, wholesale and experiential activations.
In previous roles, she demonstrated multidisciplinary skills in graphic design, interior design, packaging, illustration, and styling, working on projects ranging from window displays to identity systems.

ANTHONY RUSSO 

Anthony Russo established TradeHub International in 2005 as a hybrid service and trading company that offers education and training, market research and penetration strategies or door-to-door import/export services to companies in over 60 countries regardless of their size or industry. Russo has combined his years of experience, vast global network, and proven process to mitigate risk and cut costs for companies looking to enter the global marketplace. Russo has over 10 years of retail management experience with Walmart, Best Buy, Toys”R”Us, and Sports Authority working both on-site and regionally across all disciplines including operations, merchandising, sales, and inventory controls. He has worked with several Western Slope retailers to increase sales, improve customer flow, maximize retail space, and implement inventory/point of sale management systems.