Retail and visual merchandising: An essential, often ignored source of profit

By Jennifer Robison

This article originally appeared in the August issue of Powersports Business.

It’s been several years since I contributed to Powersports Business in my specialty of retail strategy and visual merchandising. Some of you remember my work with Tucker Rocky Distributing for 14 years, including more than 1,000 store visits, two dozen conferences, and more seminars and articles on powersports retail than I can count. 

Since I was away, a wave of new people has entered powersports retail. New dealers, new managers, new staff, and, with them, a whole new audience that hasn’t yet heard what I believe is one of the most underleveraged conversations in this industry.  

So here we are. Let’s talk about your showroom.  

The store speaks first  

When a customer steps into your space, that space speaks first. The question is: do you know what it’s saying?  

Customers decide whether a store is worth their time in under eight seconds. In that window,  they’ve already determined whether they want to explore, whether they’ll engage with your staff, and whether they’ll ever come back. The National Retail Federation puts it plainly: 65% of shoppers say store layout and product presentation directly influence their purchasing decisions.  

Eight seconds. That’s not enough time for a sales conversation. That’s an environment doing its job or failing to. The eye does not lie. Stores lack good presentations; you are leaving money on the table, and it’s so easy to fix.  

Here’s what the best retailers understand that most powersports operators haven’t fully absorbed yet: visual merchandising is behavioral design, not decoration. A well-executed floor guides the eye, simplifies choices, reinforces seasonal relevance, and moves customers toward purchase before a word is spoken. When the first impression is strong, the sales 

process accelerates, margins hold, and repeat business follows. When the impression is weak, no sales pitch in the world can undo what the floor already communicated.  

Great displays sell faster and require fewer discounts. That’s not a theory. That’s retail.  

What you’re losing  

You may not be aware of the sales you’re losing every single day because customers don’t tell you. They don’t file complaints. They don’t write reviews because the endcap was confusing or the apparel rack hadn’t been touched in two months. They simply vote with their wallets. They buy, or they don’t. They come back, or they don’t.  

Consider this:

76% of shoppers have walked out of a store without buying because they couldn’t find what they were looking for. Not because you didn’t have it. Because they couldn’t find it — and they didn’t want to ask.  

Some customers won’t engage with staff. They want to find it themselves. If your layout doesn’t support that, they’re gone. Your average ticket will tell you this story if you’re willing to read it honestly.  

Aged product, poor adjacencies, inaccessible displays — these don’t just hurt aesthetics.  They cost margin. Yes, people will buy from stores that aren’t optimized. But don’t expect repeat business on high-ticket items or apparel. Don’t expect to be seen as anything more than a place to grab an oil filter. The ceiling on what a disorganized floor can achieve is low —  and it’s self-imposed.  

The markdown problem 

One costly powersports habit is waiting too long to mark down slow inventory. By the time many dealers act, the best-selling window has already passed. Markdown timing is not just an inventory issue. It is a margin, floor-space, and cash-flow issue, and most stores are reacting too late.  

When product misses its season, the cost shows up quietly: deeper discounts, weaker sell-through, tired displays, and open-to-buy trapped in inventory that should have moved sooner. The fix is not complicated, but it does require discipline, timing, and a merchandising plan that sees the season before it passes you by. 

Underused profit center 

I can’t stress this enough: Parts and accessories are a growth and profit opportunity that most dealerships are leaving on the table.  

The accessories business has grown enormously over the past 25 years — especially alongside the explosion of side-by-sides. And yet many stores still treat merchandising as an afterthought. There’s often what I call an R&R problem in parts departments: a lack of  Respect and Resources. These departments get the leftover space, the junior staff, and the last dollar of the training budget.  

That’s backwards. A well-run P&A operation with trained staff, smart displays, strong adjacencies, and a properly maintained floor doesn’t just contribute to the bottom line — it transforms it. Higher attachment rates on unit sales. Faster turns on consumables. Fewer markdowns. A measurably higher average order value. And customers come back because they associate your store with the full experience of ownership, not just the transaction.  

Someone needs to own this side of the business. Displays, restocking, new product placement, signage, coordination with sales and service — this is daily work. Without ownership, it drifts. With ownership, it has become one of the most reliable machines in the building.  

Premium brands like BMW Motorrad and Triumph carry deep, high-margin accessory catalogs that belong in curated, intentional displays — not on generic racks near the parts counter. Honda dealers, with the broadest lineup in the industry, have a remarkable opportunity to merchandise by rider type and life stage: the new rider’s first helmet purchase,  the mid-level enthusiast adding luggage to an Africa Twin, the Gold Wing owner investing in the touring experience. Every one of those moments is a visual merchandising opportunity.  Most go uncaptured.  

What it looks like  

Investing in your retail environment isn’t a cosmetic expense. It is a revenue strategy.  You don’t always need a full renovation; it’s more like you need intention.  

Change your thinking first. Merchandising is not decorating. It is a selling system. When you treat the floor as a strategic asset rather than a necessary backdrop, everything downstream gets easier — sales conversion, service confidence, staff performance, and customer retention.  

Put someone in charge. The fastest path to a better floor is accountability. Assign ownership of the P&A and accessories environment to a specific person with specific standards, tools,  and incentives. This one move, done right, pays for itself. I am telling you this is a winning strategy.  

Get ahead of your inventory calendar. Know your turn rates by category. Build a markdown cadence that moves product before it stales. Create seasonal transitions that feel intentional because they are.  

Merchandise for the customer, not the category. Accessories shelved by product type make the store easier to manage. Accessories displayed by machine, by ride type, by lifestyle make the store easier to shop — and significantly more likely to result in a sale. The customer standing next to a Can-Am Defender doesn’t need to walk to the accessories department.  The accessories belong next to the machine, telling the story of what ownership looks like.  

Why it matters 

The pandemic gave powersports dealers a pass on retail execution needs for many stores.  When demand exceeded supply, the floor didn’t have to sell it; customers did the work for you. That era is over.  

Inventory has normalized. Floor plan costs money. And today’s consumers have been shaped by exceptional retail experiences in every other corner of their spending life — REI, Apple,  Bass Pro, the BMW showroom they walked through before deciding on the motorcycle. They carry a reference point into your store. When the experience doesn’t match, they feel it immediately — even if they can’t name it.  

The dealers who win the next cycle will be the ones who understood that the showroom is a selling tool, that P&A is a profit center, and that the customer experience on the floor is not separate from financial performance — it is financial performance. 

Let’s build something  

I’ve spent more than 28 years in powersports retail, from store-level management and accessories sales to developing retail display systems used in 800 locations nationwide during my years at Tucker Rocky. I’ve been to your stores. I understand the constraints,  staffing realities, space challenges, and practical work it takes to move the needle in this industry.  

My goal in returning to these pages is simple: to convince you that your showroom matters, that the dealers who haven’t fully optimized it have tremendous growth ahead of them, and that the tools to get there are more accessible than you think.  

People are buying. The question is whether they’re buying from you — and whether they’re coming back.  

Jennifer Robison is a retail environment strategy and performance coach at HeroHub. With more than 28 years in powersports retail, she specializes in dealership merchandising, visual presentation, and customer experience strategy & offers design and placement services for new stores and remodels. If you’re building a new store or in need of a makeover. She can be reached at jennifer.robison@herohub.com or at www.herohub.com.