It’s important to have a strong merchandising strategy in order to ensure the success of your eCommerce business. People look with their eyes first, and this image will create a lasting impression of your business. Let’s take a look at four key elements that affect this in 2024.
Merchandising is the backbone of presentation of any eCommerce store. It strategically approaches how products are displayed in your store in order to promote sales. Your merchandising strategy can be informed by your own merchandising rules. These can be personally tailored in order to fit your business strategy.
For example, if you are looking to shift old inventory then your merchandising strategy could prioritize placing older items closer to the top. If your aim is to increase sales profits, then you would list higher ticket items closer to the top. If you are looking to create a seasonal image, then you can choose which products appear in which way. Merchandising takes the way your business proceeds into your own hands.
As well as having benefits for merchants, your customers must always be kept in mind when it comes to creating merchandising strategies. A good merchandising strategy should help your business, whilst also boosting customer satisfaction.
Four Key Elements Of Merchandising
Merchandising should be high in usability, as well as offering benefits for your business goals. Merchandising should include elements of personalization, optimized search and trending topics. In order for your eCommerce store to succeed, you should take a holistic approach to all the elements of the store coming together.
The four key elements that should be incorporated into a strong merchandising strategy are:
- Brand identity
- Store layout
- Product grouping
- Personalized recommendations
Brand Identity
If your store does not have a brand identity, shoppers will not return. So having a striking and memorable image is crucial. When it comes to merchandising, shoppers are viewing with their eyes, it is how they will recognise you and judge if they trust spending their money with you.
Your brand identity is the visual representation of the brand you are. This includes elements such as:
- Logo
- Color scheme
- Style
- Font
- Tone
- Imagery
This should remain consistent throughout different areas of your brand. Whatever merchandising strategy you are using for one channel, you should make sure you use it across them all. This consistency through brands is important, as it will help the shoppers form a relationship with you.
Having consistent merchandising across all business channels is key. The merchandising that you use on your browser should be consistent with your mobile commerce, mobile applications, social media and in store (if applicable). Using a centralized platform can help achieve this, and it’s crucial in keeping the strength of your brand image.
Store Layout
Your store layout should both be visually appealing (UI – user interface) and also have high usability (UX – user experience). Both contribute to the overall success of your eCommerce store. These should be considered across your merchandising strategy, when it comes to:
- Homepage
- Landing page
- Product page
You should aim for your layout to be simple and clean, with clear action points. Users should know where to go to achieve their aims, as well as being gently guided by your business to suit your needs. Elements such as filters, recommendations and an advanced search can all help bring this into action.
Product Grouping
Making sure that products are offered in intuitive groups can be a great benefit to your eCommerce business. You can curate product groups through different merchandising rules offered in your store.
Examples of groupings can be through similar attributes, personalized data according to user history, or other aims of your business for example seasonal. The more effective your grouping is, the better the user experience will be, and the higher sales will result.
Personalized Recommendations
Offering personalized recommendations is key to any eCommerce business. Using AI backed recommendations allows you to offer users what they want to see, which will help increase sales, without breaching any data privacy laws. These can be offered from click-profile data, or first party data received consensually perhaps with incentive.
Offering personalized product recommendations will take your eCommerce experience to a whole new level, and show customers that they are valued. When done well, personalized product recommendations are a huge win-win for merchants and customers alike.
Conclusion
These four key elements of merchandising are a great jump-board to an effective merchandising solution. Merchandising can be applied across all elements of your eCommerce store, and help to add the extra touch. Letting shoppers know they are valued as well as boosting merchant aims is a huge plus. There’s no way your store can achieve its potential without merchandising, so these features are a great checklist to make sure you’re running in good stead.