Your Store Should Be Your Showroom

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Where else is your customer going to get great examples of how a home aquarium or terrarium will look if they can’t see them set up on display in your store? For those stores who stock aquatic and reptile habitats, it is essential to display ideas that will draw the customer’s interest.

Most of the successful stores we visit while detailing our vendor’s products have a knack for drawing in new customers. Any store can have a nice variety of aquariums and terrariums in assorted sizes and shapes. However, if they are just collecting dust, they may as well be in storage. Stores that have several displays set up will give their customers an idea of how they might look in their home, maybe even drawing in new customers who had just stopped in to buy supplies.

We often hear complaints from store owners that too many families come in just to visit the free zoo within their stores. Many of those family lookers eventually succumb to our wonderful world of pet hobbies because of their children’s interest. One new customer can mean additional thousands of dollars in future purchases or free word-of-mouth advertising.

Remember that children grow up and become consumers and are a big part of the future for our industry. They won’t be excited by a bunch of empty aquariums and terrariums sitting in a big showroom. You don’t need artful displays of dog food and cat posts, but aquariums and terrariums require a little extra effort to educate and entice the consumer.

Plan ahead as we come into the holiday season. Aquariums and terrariums need time to mature and grow, whether it is a nano reef tank, live planted aquarium, or an amphibian terrarium. The savvy store will set up several desktop sized display units that can be sold as complete packages out the door.

There are even a few distributors jumping on the bandwagon by offering complete desktops to their dealers that only need water added and the provided cycling bacteria at the point of sale. A great idea is an instant aquarium, ready to be sold with a betta or freshwater shrimps and a few plants added. The water and fish can be bagged up for customers to merely add back into the aquarium once they arrive home. The Styrofoam boxes most stores throw away make great waterproof transport boxes for the ride home.

Make your displays something that a casual visitor to your store can’t resist. Let them envision that beautiful aquarium or terrarium setup in their family room, office or even their children’s bedroom. Don’t forget to upload images of your displays to your website and Facebook page to help draw customers into your store. Customers may come in once a month to buy consumables, but you will need to spark their imagination to get them to spend bigger dollars.

If you have floor space dedicated to all those empty aquariums and terrariums, make sure to decorate them with backgrounds, gravel or ground cover, ornaments and use a variety of stands, canopies and lights that are turned on. Don’t let the opportunity pass to capture the interest of a new or existing customer simply walking through the aisle.

Having a simple display with LED lighting simulating a 24 hour day is easy to add to one of those empty aquariums and will be a great attention grabber when talking to a prospective customer. You can run through the entire day period in a matter of minutes for demonstration purposes.