Entice Customers with Fresh Produce

It almost goes without saying that your fruit and veg must look appetising and fresh. Creative, eye-catching produce displays encourage customers to buy on impulse and thus drive sales and increase your profit margin. At The Retail Data Partnership (TRDP) we have some thoughts to help you to develop visually interesting produce displays. We know that eye-catching presentations drive sales, maximise profits and increase footfall.

Often a customer will come in store for something they needed, but how many of them have left the store with something they didn’t intend to buy?

Grocery Industry Studies show that 60% to 70% of purchases were unplanned, impulse buys. 85% of convenience stores now say that fruit and veg are important to the overall success of their store (Convenience Store Magazine, 2015). According to him! Research and Consulting, shoppers only buy 12% of their fruit and vegetables in convenience stores – leaving much of it being thrown away!

You can change this – and make a name for yourself in the community – with brilliant displays of fresh produce. Give your customers recipes and preparation tips. If you sell local produce, make sure that your customers know it!

The Importance of Colour

Create a display using the contrasting colours of fruit and veg – the bright yellow of bananas and deep green and red of apples enable you to create an eye-catching display that is hard to resist.

Don’t put large amounts of the same colours together, rather grab customers’ attention with a rainbow of produce. This will encourage your customer to scan the whole display which will maximise the chance of an impulse purchase.

Use the warm, deep colours of vegetables like tomatoes and add greens like those of lettuce, cabbage and asparagus.

This can be achieved by carefully layering, stacking and arranging your produce according to colour, relevance and order.

Group Related Items Together

Display items that go with salad – cucumber, lettuce, tomato and spring onion – with croutons, salad dressings and fresh herbs. The same idea for fruit with items such as Greek yogurt, and veg with humus. This will make it easier for customers to select ingredients for recipes.

Displaying and Storing your Produce

Think about what you’re going to store your produce in and be a creative with your layout. Create feature displays with apples in wicker baskets or barrels. Use jute mesh cloths for all your green veg for an earthy look. This will give your produce a natural, organic feel that your customers will see as healthy goodness – which is a great selling point.

Use differing textures of produce and storage and place them together, for example, rough with smooth or shiny with dull.

Visit the big supermarket chains and note that produce displays are often tiered for a better view. Place bigger items, like potatoes, at the bottom, with smaller items above them for a fuller look

Remove potatoes, carrots and onions from their packaging so that they look freshly picked for purchase – and keep the green leaves on carrots and rhubarb.

Product Information

Be creative with what you tell customers about products. Tell them where they come from, where and when they were picked and if they’re organic. Use images of supplier farms and quirky illustrations. Give consumers more than just the price.

Some convenience store retailers are nervous about introducing fresh produce because they fear losses through wastage. Those who have learned from their mistakes and persevered report that they have seen an uplift in sales across all categories.