| Firstly, the main showroom and entrance is cleared of the Summer Outdoor Living ranges, leaving the shop floor looking extremely empty. (see picture) |
| Our second major task is to line the ceiling with fire retardant black out material and put up the thousands of twinkling fairy lights to give the impression of a starry night within our magical Christmas wonderland. |
| The fairy lights are laid out on the empty shop floor, un-raveled and then tested to identify if any bulbs need replacing. (see picture) |
| With safety stands in place the team start putting the lights in place. |
| FACTS |
| We use 3400 square meters of fire retardant material to line the roof and walls. |
| The material is fully tested and approved by the Fire Service to ensure it can with stand the heat generated from the lights. |
| Over 47,000 lights are manually installed into the ceiling every year which takes a two man team over 2 weeks. |
| There are over 540 square meters of wire netting as a double precaution to ensure the lights to ensure the high standards of health and safety are maintained. |
| Next week we start putting the coloured themed displays into position… |
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With the ceiling looking like a dark night sky with wonderful twinkling lights we are now in a position to start bringing the Christmas fixtures, shelving and stands down onto the empty shop floor. These are fixed in place based on the Christmas display floor plan. |
Some of the fixtures are huge ‘L’ shaped units that we use to create the coloured lifestyle displays. They provide the real WOW factor for customers. Luckily we have our very own “Handy Andy” who is affectionately known as “Maintenance Mike”. Mike designs and builds all of our structures and fixings so they meet our specific requirements and space constraints perfectly. |
Whilst the fixtures are being positioned on the shop floor some of the team get involved in painting the background wall to co-ordinate with the many coloured themes we select each year. It does look a little like “Changing Rooms” have descended on All-In-One for the week! |
Meanwhile our Merchandising Manager is busy preparing for the lifestyle displays and buys various ‘props’ to keep areas looking fresh each year. This is also when the Gift Area gets the colour themes implemented so we can start to sell stock to customers. |
The rest of the team are busy in the background ensuring that all stock is input onto the computer and given stock locations with our stores. This preparation helps the visual merchandisers replenish stock quickly as it does literally fly off the shelf during November and December. |
It’s also at this point that we take bookings for our famous Supper with Santa event held in store during December. Customers travel from all over the North West to ensure they secure a place for their children. It does get booked up very quickly and it has been know to be booked up within 3 weeks of issue. |
Next week the stock starts arriving on the shop floor…. |
| FACTS |
From mid October through to the end of December we recruit an additional 40% of seasonal staff to boost our team of “Santa’s Little Helpers”. |
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This is quite a big week when the shop floor transforms itself from an empty space to a Christmas shop filled with decorations, garlands and tableware. |
The teams are briefed each morning and split into groups to ensure that our award winning Christmas is open to the public as quickly as possible. |
One team works on displaying and filling the Christmas decorations and novelty stock within the coloured themes. These particular staff tend to sparkle from head to toe by the end of each working day due to the glitter items they handle! |
| Another team installs Christmas lights into the annex which has been blacked out, thus creating the perfect effect to view the many different Christmas lights we have available. |
| Whilst the remaining team put the artificial Christmas Trees up for the showroom display. |
| This is also the week when the evening group interviews take place for the Christmas recruitment drive so the majority of staff will work late on these nights allowing them to focus purely on Christmas build whilst the store is closed. |
| With the majority of staff tied up with Christmas we rely heavily on a small team to ensure the high standards of customer service is still being delivered across the store as well as being available to receive the delivery of stock that arrives daily on site. |
Next week the displays are finalised and we start to organise Santa’s Grotto… |
FACTS |
| We use approximately 500 extension leads within our Christmas displays – that’s enough for over 2000 plugs. |
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With the majority of areas just in need of the final finishing touches by the visual merchandisers it’s time for the teams to now focus on specifics. |
Our display artificial Christmas trees are dressed in the various coloured themes to show customers just how stunning the range will look decorated upon Christmas trees. |
The Christmas tableware range and displays are laid out showing customers how to create stylish table settings in various colourways. |
| It’s not just the inside of the store that we consider when planning Christmas, the outside is equally important as this gives both new and old customers that all important first impression. Outdoor lights, trees and decorations are positioned in the car park, at the front of store and on the approach to the store to maximise the effect…And this week we had the delivery of our giant Reindeer and his family (see photos) which will be emblazoned with lights and displayed outside adjacent to the roadside creating even more theatre for our customers this Christmas. |
We now have some of Santa’s little helpers starting work so it is important that they receive full training on their role and responsibilities, how to deliver the best customer service and maintain our very high standards. |
This year’s preparation for the TV commercial begins. The strategy and target market are agreed followed by scripts and a flow of the 30 second advert. A key task is to find a suitable location to shoot the advert, once agreed we then finalise the products and resources required to build and dismantle each shot.…with more pictures next week on the actual TV shoot and how we created our 30 second advert. |
| FACTS |
When dressing the Christmas trees we always work in odd numbers as this is aesthetically pleasing for the human eye. |
We have over 60 types of tinsel available in store in over 10 different colourways. Put end to end we buy over 4500 meters of tinsel. |
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With the displays now virtually finished, the merchandising team work on making sure stock is replenished and fully available to customers. |
Work now starts of building Santa’s Grotto in anticipation of his arrival every weekend during December. This year Santa’s Grotto will be shaped like an igloo with artic reindeer and polar bears, lots of artificial snow and displays to reflect a winter wonderland. |
All of the lifestyle displays are finished and proudly showcase each colour theme beautifully. You can see customer’s reactions to the displays and we have already had many compliments regarding our visual displays. |
The TV commercial has been filmed on location this year and you can see a sneak preview in the pictures taken. If you live within the Granada TV region be sure to watch out for the adverts. The sets are built in a day and the filming takes place the day after. |
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