Retail marketers simultaneously use different stimuli to make prospective consumers buy their products. Through discounts, enhanced ways of product packaging, use of promotional banners and whatnot. It’s a combination of everything that can connect with the consumer psyche and make them pay.
This creative pursuit of bringing the right product, of the right price and right quantity, in front of the right audience at the right place and during the right time, is what retail merchandising precisely focuses on. And while it might seem like an art, this form of marketing is largely driven by scientific consumer behavioural models and extensive market research.
The following are some of the most globally used in-store visual merchandising techniques which are proven to yield remarkable results.
Vertical Merchandising: This technique focuses on grouping similar products vertically rather than horizontally to let consumers choose what they want right from one place, rather than looking around for available options.
Eye-Level Display: This strategy emphasizes boosting profitability by displaying high-demand products, seasonal products, promotional products or impulse products, right between the belt and the eye level of a consumer.
Given that consumers find a plethora of products to go through in a supermarket in a limited time frame, this technique works wonders to ensure that consumers get to see everything that the brand wants them to see.
Cross Merchandising: This technique makes use of other products to help increase the revenue of high-priced products that are slow-moving but can yield a high revenue. A classic example of this is dry fruits, which are usually placed near packaged snacks and candies as complementary products.
Colour Ribboning and Colour Blocking: Colours are mood setters, and mood is dependent on one’s environment. In retail merchandising, marketers use colours in an attempt to dictate the flow in which consumers can browse their products. Like for example, in summer people prefer light colours whereas during winter dark colours relate more to the general mood.
Colour ribboning refers to the vertical use of colours for merchandising while colour blocking refers to the horizontal use of colours. This technique is used to encourage consumers to browse more products. An ideal example of this is how apparel is showcased in a store. An item with several colour options is showcased in a manner that can attract customers to indulge in them.
Small to Large, goes Left to Right: While selling items in multiple sizes, marketers place smaller sizes towards the left and larger sizes towards the right. That’s because most people are right-handed, and selling a larger pack size yields a higher profit margin for the brand. Emphasizing on human behaviour, this technique relies on consumers unconsciously picking up the items with their right hand, while shopping in a store.
Spread the Stock: Empty shelves can bring down sales. Hence marketers spread their products to fill the shelf space. This gives consumers the perception that the store can cater to their needs and can offer more products and varieties to browse through. This also helps in keeping the stockroom clear and ensuring maximum product units are being showcased.
Curve the Display: This technique uses shelves of different sizes and shapes to enhance the in-store display and increase the consumer’s visibility of the products. Examples of these can be the use of rotating shelves, pyramid shelves, etc.
Dump Bins: This technique brings a high volume of merchandise in front of customers. According to consumer behaviour, in a consumer’s mind, high volume means low price. Here many units are dumped in a big basket or bin without any organizing. This is an efficient way of promoting low price products to give consumers the feeling that these are bargain deals.
Retail merchandising strategies need to work together concurrently to make the sale happen. But as a brand serving many outlets in many cities and in many countries, it becomes a hassle to ensure where to use which strategy, and at what point in time. To aid this problem, marketers are reaching out for smart retail merchandising solutions which enable FMCG brands with real-time in-store visibility, for implementing the best mix of merchandising techniques.
Such solutions come with the ability to let brands monitor their share of shelf along with their competitors’ share of shelf, in every store across every city and country. It also automates the process of stock tracking, provides real-time analytics based on image recognition models to take immediate actions and reduce human dependency; and also measures the effectiveness of secondary displays and promotions in driving in-store sales.
With the help of such solutions, global retail brands are able to carry out effective marketing initiatives based on real-time i-store analytics, across all retail outlets in the world. But don’t take our word for it. Check out these strategies at play when you visit a retail store next. And to know more about how top FMCG brands are using smart merchandising to increase market share, you can connect with us at marketing@mobisy.com.
