In the spirit of the holiday season, our designer panel offers the gift of advice — tips and suggestions for retailers to ponder in advance of a brand new year of ordering, selling, merchandising, mood setting, hiring, advertising, displaying and story-telling.

When making a retail space appear new and fashionable, time and money may be limited, but your imagination is not. Telling a story with your displays engages customers and keeps them coming back. Graphics applied to store windows can help promote your brand, giving life and context to the products behind the glass. Don't shy away from colors or combinations just because you wouldn't use them in your home. Try an accent color inside a display cabinet, pick colors that contrast with your products, and group products with the same color to create interest. Play background music that mixes various genres and time periods to appeal to both the young and not-so-young. — Paul Thompson

It's all about creating a sense of nature indoors... bringing the outdoors in with color, texture and light. During the winter months when we spend more time inside, it's even more important to evoke this feeling, with botanicals, animal prints, soothing hues and bold gestures of natural colors. — David Landis

Know who you are, and make that evident in everything you do. In doing trunk shows across the country, I'm often amazed by the loyalty of the specialty store customer. The most successful stores I visit share a common thread: they have a specific point of view. They are certainly aware of trends, but filter these through their own perspective. They select merchandise they're enthusiastic about, and share that enthusiasm with their clients. They take the time to educate their sales staff about their vision so that they, too, can communicate what the store is about and what makes their merchandise special. — Dorian Webb

My advice to retailers is to look at your store or Web site as if you are the customer. What we see everyday isn't always what the customer sees. Make sure the first impression generates excitement and a feeling of welcome: use trend paint colors and fabrics; mix new production introductions with best sellers; maintain a team of happy sales associates who greet the customers like guests and can answer their questions; make sure you have clean, well-lit stores; set the mood with background music; and use visually exciting vignettes that are easy to shop and tell a story. — Mark Abrams

Much of a retailer's success is determined by the relationship maintained with his or her customer base, so word-of-mouth becomes a very powerful advertising tool. Therefore, it's important to develop and maintain a reputation for excellent purchasing, merchandising and customer service. Keep a check on the consumers' pulse — what they're thinking and where their comfort zone lies — but challenge yourself to create new comfort choices by thinking out of the box. At Barclay and Co. we translate the idea to the consumer by pulling together furniture, accessories and lighting into lifestyle vignettes. — Barclay Butera

Marry your floor to your ceiling. Create little environments on raised platforms, drop a few chandeliers or fabric from the ceiling, suspend a grid in larger stores. You only have so much floor space, but you can sell from a ceiling, too — think of it as real estate over your head that you've already paid for. — Lisa Nardone

I'd like to see more retailers integrate their online functions with their retail locations, enabling customers to pick up their online orders in any one of a store's locations instead of having them shipped. The retailers could also provide computer stations or kiosks in the store for shoppers who arrive to find their item is out of stock. Rather than lose the sale, the customer could order it right there online, lured by a discount or free shipping. — Doug Wilson

The product displays should demonstrate how the customers can mix and match to take away a look that is all their own. My collections for Stein Mart are designed and displayed with this idea in mind — "everything goes together, but nothing matches." New product introductions will add on to, rather than replace, what is on the store shelves right now. This layering technique gives the retailer more opportunities to freshen displays and demonstrate the range of options that exist for the customer. — Nina Campbell

Mark Abrams

David Landis

Paul Thompson

Dorian Webb

Barclay Butera

Lisa Nardone

Doug Wilson

Campbell's mix and match layering concept encourages shoppers to create a look that is all their own.

Nina Campbell