What's In Store For These Silent Salespeople?

Mannequins have come a long way. From being mute spectators to becoming silent salespersons influencing purchasing decision, from being unmissable store eye candies to becoming interactive and smart enabled by technology, they have indeed evolved keeping pace with the overall market trends. VM&RD reached out to a few mannequin manufacturers and suppliers to get their take on new market trends as far as mannequins are concerned. Here’s a low down.

- Payal Gulati

Mannequins have had their ups and down as the retail market itself went through its different phases. Today as brick and mortar retail goes through some dynamic shifts, with experiential offerings and technology fast redefining the shopping environment, what does the future hold for mannequins? What are the new trends?

Almost all leading retailers would agree that garments displayed on mannequins sell 40-50% faster than in-store merchandises, prompting retailers to increase the number of mannequins per store. Many modern mannequins are also equipped with technologies like facial recognition and beacon technology. Some of them are even data collectors, capturing data on passersby. But what else is really happening on the mannequin front? How is the mannequin industry looking? When VM&RD reached out to a few mannequin industry players, a few key observations emerged.

Emerging trends

One very clearly discernible trend is that mannequin manufacturers are focusing on producing environmental friendly mannequins. As Ravi Verma, Founder, Clone Mannequins, says, “Everything is changing, in terms of technology, material and the look of the mannequin. In the coming years, you will see big changes in the material of mannequin as people want to be more eco-friendly. Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) is not good from an environmental point of view. But still, in India we see many of them.”

“In India, the clients are much concerned about the style and they are not much concerned about the material. Active mannequins are more now than regular ones. Trends of the mannequin are changing too fast,” he adds.