Here at Marketing Zone we’ve seen a great in store Christmas merchandising campaign from John Lewis – products are grouped together as ‘Gifts they’ll love’. Blinding!

Now I know many people hate to think of Christmas when it’s only October but in the Retail sector you need to be spot on with timing and consumer shopping for Christmas 2012 has already started. Trust me. It has. So it’s natural then, that retailers reflect consumer buying habits and gear up for this seasonal boost to sales, especially after the UK Retail Sales Monitor from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG confirmed the poor sales this summer. Incidentally John Lewis bucked the trend.

The John Lewis campaign makes good sense because gifts are grouped by the consumers they will appeal to, making it that bit easier to buy for your partner, niece or neighbour. With groupings including ‘Gifts aspiring chefs will love’, Gifts kids and big kids will love’ and even the tricky ‘Gifts tech fans will love’, the in store merchandising campaign from John Lewis is all about making shopping as easy as possible for hard-pressed customers. Backed by TV advertising, window displays and bold graphics on the shop floor this is ‘Marketing we love’.

Marketing Zone provides a range of in store support to retailers from training materials for store staff to light box posters. It’s this kind of cost-effective marketing support that helped our client gain the top 3 place for Polaroid sunglasses sales in airport shops in the UK.