A Guide to Buying Clothes Rails

Posted On: August 1, 2020 By: jodee

Clothes rails are an important part of fashion displays, but there is a lot to consider when fitting out your shop. They need to serve a number of purposes at once. Not only do garment rails offer easy access to your products, but they also form part of your display and your brand so need to look great.

Clothes rails are an important part of fashion displays, but there is a lot to consider when fitting out your shop. They need to serve a number of purposes at once. Not only do garment rails offer easy access to your products, but they also form part of your display and your brand so need to look great. In addition, they help create the customer flow around the shop, guiding the public towards the stock you want them to consider as a priority.

With this in mind, you can’t just order any old clothes rails and leave it to chance. You need to work through a checklist of important points, which is why we have put this together for you. Have a look at the Retail Factory’s guide to buying clothes rails and it will help match you with the ideal hanging clothes rail for your particular situation.

Check the Size That You Need

Although we would all love premises that were huge and regularly shaped, that is usually not the case. Undoubtedly, you will need to work with less space than you would like (this will always be the case!) and with alcoves, nooks, crannies and other strange spaces into which you need to fit everything you want to display.

Measure the space you want to fill before you dive into buying clothes rails. Generally, garment rails range from 2ft to 6ft wide, so you should be able to find something to fit the needs of the space you have at your disposal.

Pick the Style You Need

Clothes rails are not just practical items to hold your stock, they are also a visible part of your display on the shop floor. As such, you need to pick garment rails that suit your branding, theme and decor. If they jar with the atmosphere you have created elsewhere, it will diminish the customer experience somewhat.

You need to decide whether to opt for a subtle style or to make the clothes rail noticeable. The colour is important too, with silvers and greys conjuring up an industrial feel, and brown wood creating a classic atmosphere. You can find modern rails, vintage looking items and everything in between as well.

The shape of the clothes rails is also important, and you will want a uniform look across the shopfloor, unless you are making a design point with all rails being different from each other.

Choose Additional Clothes Rail Features

In order to further personalise your clothes rails and adapt them to function as you need them to, you can choose additional features when you buy them.

Some come with shelves that offer a space to show off accessories that work well with the product you display on the rail. For example, you might have a certain type of dress on display on the garment rail, with shoes and a handbag that complement it sitting on the shelf. This is a great way to upsell customers, who can see the whole outfit already picked out for them.

Two-tiered clothes rails are also worth looking into if you want to encourage customers to buy products together. You might have a t-shirt on sale that goes perfectly with a pair of shorts. With a two-tiered clothes rail, you can place the t-shirt on the top rail and the shorts below to help the customer visualise the outfit.

There are also extenders to increase the height of some rails, allowing you to display longer items. For instance, a normal rail may be too low to hang a ball gown on without it dragging on the floor, but with an extender you can show off the gown in all its glory whilst ensuring it doesn’t pick up dirt from the floor or get trodden on by shoppers.

You might also consider buying rail covers to protect the clothes. If you use your hanging clothes rail for special events, you can throw the rail cover over the clothes while they are on the rail, wheel it into the van and store it safely like that until the next event at which you have to display it. This protects your stock from dust and dirt while in storage.

Is It Strong Enough?

The strength of the clothes rail that you need depends on what you sell. For summer dresses, you won’t need the same strength of rail as you would for heavy winter coats or other heavy duty merchandise.

At The Retail Factory, you can get hold of standard clothes rails and reinforced clothes rails too, depending on your needs. It is important that you choose the correct type of rail because you wouldn’t want your display buckling under the weight of your garments while people were milling about nearby.

Check the Mobility

The mobility of your clothes rails is important whether you sell from a single location or attend events with your stock. Obviously in the case of the latter, you need to easily move your rails in and out of different venues without any issue. However, even if you have a shop, it is good to be able to move rails around. It helps you keep the layout fresh and to quickly adjust any issues that you find with the way customers move around your shop.

For this reason, many retailers prefer to buy clothes rails with wheels, but fishtail, free-standing rails can be mobile enough if they are light and not too cumbersome.

If you are looking for new clothes rails for your shop, talk to the Retail Factory today.