Retail sales drive 70% of economic growth. Despite the rise of e-commerce sales, people still love to shop in a physical store. Because of this, you shouldn’t neglect your retail locations.
So, what is merchandising? It’s not sales. Merchandising is how you present your products in a physical retail location. You need a successful merchandising strategy to help ensure the success of your retail stores.
This guide will explain what merchandising is and possible strategies for your store.
What Is Merchandising?
Visual merchandising is the promotion of goods or services that are available for sale in a retail setting. This includes several elements that all combine to entice a consumer to make a purchase.
- Determination of quantities
- Setting prices
- Creating display designs
- Developing marketing strategies
- Establishing discounts or coupons
Goal of Merchandising
When creating your merchandising strategy, you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to create displays that will help you reach your chosen goal. This could be developing customer loyalty, driving foot traffic, increasing awareness, or generating more sales.
Importance of Merchandising
Creating a varied display that showcases all of the products your store offers. This entices shoppers inside by giving them a taste of your broad product line.
Place most in-demand products easily within sight and reach. This makes it easier for customers to find and buy what they want most.
Promote products that you’re offering sales or coupons for. This entices increased sales by appealing to your customer’s sense of urgency and desire to get a good deal.
Merchandising Display Tips
Try to create a display that appeals to more than one sense. This could be an interactive display that uses sounds, motion, touch, or smell.
Create displays that are in the windows of your retail location. This will entice people to come into your store and shop. Then create displays throughout the retail space to showcase your products.
Don’t forget to create a point of sale display. This should be smaller items that are perfect for the impulse buy. You’ll incrementally increase sales by increasing each purchase with an additional impulse purchase.
Create a visually appealing display for the products with eye-catching signage. Try to put the displays at eye level.
Benefits of Merchandising
With the right display and merchandising strategy, you should see increased sales that translate to increased profits. Your shoppers should be more satisfied and engaged. This encourages them to spend more time in your store.
Long term, you should see higher inventory turnover within a specific location. This can help you identify successful products and better tailor your product line to what your customers want.
On the customer side, you’ll see an increase in brand loyalty and recognition.
Upgrade Your Retail Merchandising
As you can see, there are several ways you can implement a merchandising strategy in your retail locations. Now that you’re no longer asking, what is merchandising, you’re ready to implement a merchandising strategy. With the right strategy, you can begin to see the many benefits that merchandising can offer your business.
Browse our other design articles for more tips and advice to creating the most appealing displays for your store and products.