Color can influence a customer’s behavior and buying preferences. While the merchandise color itself can affect buying decisions, the colors surrounding the customer can also affect them. The colors used in the store format, displays and even the customer service department can create different emotions and you can use those emotions to your advantage.
Just What Do Colors Do?
Market researchers have found that color can affect the shopping habits of customers more than originally thought. An impulse shopper responds to red-orange, black, and royal blue. On the other hand, a budget shopper will respond best to pink, teal, light blue and navy. A shopper who is a traditionalist will respond to pink, rose, and sky blue. When setting up your displays, keep this in mind.
If cool colors, like the colors blue and green, are used on the walls and décor of your customer service department, it can have a calming effect. Blue arouses the feelings of calmness, security, and trust while green symbolizes wealth, growing things, and nature. When these colors are used together, it may make an irate customer calm down just by being in the area where the colors are.
You can also use colors which can relate to a theme and then have the colors represent the concept. For example, in a lingerie department you would use soft romantic colors in delicate hues, such as pink and lavender, to compliment the feminine undertones of the garments. In the same respect, you may use greens and browns for an outdoor display of hunting equipment or gardening supplies. You wouldn’t use pinks for hunting and brown for lingerie since it would not deliver the sublime message you would want to be sending.
When is Too Much Too Much?
You should also keep in mind not to overwhelm your product with too much color. If you immerse your merchandise in too much color then it becomes overshadowed and the impact is lost. For example, the color red creates a blood rush and is associated with movement. This is a perfect color to be used for sales and if used too much can actually agitate your shoppers. It’s best to keep this color at about 20 percent of your overall color scheme.
Another strong color is black. It can stand for elegance, sophistication, and mysticism; this color can evoke a very strong emotion. It can be used with another strong color, such as yellow, to help evoke positive feelings. Since yellow is a happy color, it can make your customer feel optimistic. The color yellow actually causes the brain to release more serotonin, a feel good chemical, which in turn can cause your customer to want to purchase more products.
Colors and Brand Recognition
Keep in mind the target audience you are trying to reach when you are planning the design for your promotional materials. By choosing colors that can increase your store or brand recognition, it will help customers associate those colors with your company. If you plan it correctly, you can work your color scheme into not just your business cards but also into your retail design. You could choose your primary color for your ceiling and walls and use a lighter shade of the color for your merchandise tags, employee smocks, and merchandise bags.
When planning the color schemes for your customer service department as well as your store, think about your target market and what you’re trying to say and then choose the colors that send the message you wish to portray. Using the correct colors will send the correct message and bring business into your store.
photo courtesy of morguefile.com
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!