The Woodland Mall

Yesterday for class we went to the Woodland mall and walked around different stores to see how they advertise and use certain techniques to sell their items. I have always known that there is some sort of method by storeowners to better sell their items, so this was a great opportunity to find that out. I went into ten different stores and I will give a little summary about what I found in each.

Icing: Right when we walked into the store we found a strong scent of perfume. This quickly diminished as we walked further into the store, but it definitely was noticeable. The store also had mirrors all around the top of the walls with lights that aloud a more three-dimensional view of some of the objects. 

Motherhood: In Motherhood the lighting highlighted certain clothes on the walls. The store owner said they like to advertise the clothes to make them desirable like stores like The Limited or Charlette Russe. The store owner also said they try to play softer music because they don't want to make it to loud or uncomfortable for the mothers or those buying in the store.

American Eagle: All the sales were at the back of the store to make it so people had to walk through the entire store to get to that section. They had a strong perfume scent throughout the store that is the typical "American Eagle scent." The music was much louder than Motherhood and there were speakers all over. They had fluorescent lights that made the clothes brighter and more desirable. They also had disco balls at the front of the store which made some of the clothes glimmer.

Yankee Candle: Obviously in this store there were some strong scents, but we determined that those scents were a mixture of all the different candles. They played "chill" music and had medium lighting.

Williams Sonoma: This was a store that sold kitchen supplies. Instantly when we walked into the store it smelled strongly of garlic. We found out that they had a "kitchen" in the store that was making a garlic pasta sauce which was the source of the smell. They also had lights on all of the products making them look desirable, as if the smell wasn't enough.

Aeropostale: They too had a strong scent right when we walked into the store. The music was very loud and the lights were on the outfits hanging on the wall.

Trade Home: This was a shoe store that had the sales at the front of the store. The store owner said this made people want to come in. It smelled like new shoes in the store which is always a pleasant smell. The store owner also said that some of the items had to be sold in certain places because the companies that the shoes were from told them where to sell their shoes from.

Potterybarn: Instantly when we walked in it smelled homey, like cedar. It makes you feel like you are actually in a home. They had lower lighting and once again the word that comes to mind is homey.

Hollister: Hollister had extremely low lighting. It smelled very strong of perfume and the music was extremely loud. They also had fans right when you walked into the store which blew your hair and made you feel like you were at the beach.

Forever 21: They had a fresh smell and everything was color coordinated. The girls section was bright and lit up well and the mens section had much lower lighting.