It's time to spruce things up, clean out, organize, and put on a fresh new face. It is important to address this in our stores - offering fresh new looks in product displays provides inspiration for customers, and motivates them to buy.

For successful display ideas, look to nature for inspiration…Pull out all the stops and bring a blooming garden into your store or showroom! Grasses, flowers, natural elements like cherry blossom-bedecked branches and moss will give your store a shot of energy in more ways than one. Even if they are silk flowers, adding a touch of nature to a display bring a sense of life and movement into it. Mess it up, though - bend the stems wildly, pull a few petals off of a silk tulip and scatter them on the table beneath the vase. Make it realistic!

Mix up merchandise you have had a while with a few pieces of new products in 'the' hot color of the season (gold, white, magenta, orange, robin's egg blue and earthy greens for spring 08). Try a new color of linens & candles, perhaps. Whimsy, imagination, and a simple color scheme can make fast work of a new display and breathe life into an old one.

Use props that tie in with spring: terra cotta pots, a garden fence or trellis, topiaries, a wheelbarrow. Here's a simple Spring display idea: Cover a table with burlap, pile up various sizes of terra cotta pots to use as risers and containers for small items, and add a large colorful silk potted tulip plant to the center of the display.

Then, add your merchandise – how about white ceramic dishes & serving pieces? Stack them up, set a few on the terracotta pot 'risers', create a place setting - then lay a garden spade alongside it instead of a fork & spoon. Place a garden trellis behind the display, whether it is in the center of your store or against a wall. Dinnerware with a floral image would be perfect for a display like this. If you don’t sell dishes, what about bath & body care items? Fill the pots with them, let them spill out all over. You might use handbags or stationery with floral images, or baby clothes & toys with a floral or garden motif. With this one display setup, you can rotate new products in and out every week.

Let your displays set a scene: Offer table scapes that evoke lovely afternoon luncheons and teas on a sunny day, or a sweet birthday party for children. Cross-merchandise products to increase ease of shopping for your customers, and per-transaction totals.

Color, inspiration, and freshness are what people are looking for at this point in the year - make sure you are providing these along with the wonderful products you sell.