As the efforts to re-open goes underway, Allyson Nelson, the proprietor of John Henry Marina Resort in Garden Bay, Pender Harbour had her shop re-vamped a couple of weeks ago and readied it for the upcoming busy summer season. About 50% of the space is allocated for groceries, wine and liquor while the remaining 50% housed gift and souvenir items.

I hope by sharing her story with you, that you can glean some insights on how to maximize sales for the limited shoppers your selling space can hold during this time.
Goal #1: Getting shoppers to fully penetrate the selling space by making it easy to access all areas of the shop
How we did it:
A. Moved the cash desk from the front of the store to the middle, thereby getting customers deeper into the space
B.  Due to its large size (about 3200 sq. ft.), we created an easy to shop grid layout
Goal #2: Enticing destination shoppers to purchase higher margin gift items over and above the basic consumables
How we did it:
A. Merchandise their inventory by story instead of by end-use
B. Created a feature ‘boat’ display right upfront that supported their brand but also enticed shoppers to explore more by giving them a taste of what’s to come
Results thus far:   
Customers were heard commenting: “I could spend hours in here”; “There’s so much to see” 
People were already buying gift items even while we were still merchandising
As per Allyson “We’re really getting positive feedback about the merchandising!” 
Sold the giant octopus the first weekend