Retail Merchandising Tips to Grow Your Business

Retail Merchandising Tips

Retail Merchandising Tips. There’s no shortage of advice out there that will help your retail business grow, but perhaps the most important strategy of all is visual merchandising. It’s one thing to get shoppers through your door, it’s another thing to convince them to make purchases once their inside. The power of optimized virtual merchandising is often overlooked.

Ultimately, your merchandising needs to create an experience that makes your customers want to keep coming back and creates trust and loyalty that you’ll have the products they’re looking for in easy-to-access areas of your store.

Think about what your brand stands for and the message you want to send your target demographic. Use that message to create a story, and tell that story throughout your branding, marketing, and merchandising. Product selection, store layouts, and display designs should all be an integral part of this story — with the target customer at the center. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and what you would want to experience while walking through your store.

The floor plan layout of your store is more important than you may think. You need to achieve a few goals here: Optimize existing space and provide an accessible path for customers to easily navigate through your product displays. Start where the customers start — at the front — and work your way back. Avoid cluttering the first 15 feet at your store entrance to make a great first impression and remember that shoppers naturally move from right to left.

It’s not enough to simply put products where there’s space. Stick with your story and build merchandising displays around that so customers can make a mental connection to your brand every time they shop at your store. Group products logically and get creative, but don’t stray too much as to confuse shoppers or make it hard to find what they’re looking for. 

While shoppers start their journey with their eyes, it’s not enough to engage only one of their senses. Add music to enhance the experience, especially if it’s seasonal (think Christmas) or popular tunes that your customers tend to like. Don’t overlook the power of scent, either. Research shows that 75% of emotions are triggered by smell , and that goes for good scents and bad odors alike.

The longer a customer moves throughout your store looking for products the more tired and frustrated they’ll become. Merchandise new, trendy, or best-selling items towards the front of the store when shoppers have the most interest in their surroundings. Optimize average purchase amounts by placing lower-priced or sale items towards the back, so even the bargain hunters are more likely to pick up full-priced items early on in their shopping trip.

Rotate displays every few weeks to ensure that you’re regularly showing fresh, new, and high-value products. This is also a great way to change things up during holidays or seasonal selling periods. You can also use display rotations to experiment and test out-of-the-box ideas without committing to permanent display changes. This is almost like A/B testing, and if your first plan doesn’t work, you can easily switch things out and try something else. 

Once you’ve figured out the store layout and created a merchandising plan, think about how you can increase sales by adding signs that better identify key areas of your store. Keep them clear and simple to help highlight promotions or products that will boost profit margins. The right signage near the cash register can even boost impulse purchases, which can also help your bottom line grow and keep your business thriving.

For your merchandising strategy to truly help your business grow, it’s important to work with a partner that understands your vision and can help create displays that bring your store to life. Look for a company that has experience across industries and can create custom items with branding consistency that tick off all the boxes.

We help drive customer’s brand preferences and ultimately, sales. From concept through distribution our capabilities are not limited by medium, retail channel, customer size or delivery requirements. We are committed to transforming great ideas into even greater examples of the finest quality merchandising equipment while maximizing the visual impact of our customers’ products. When you’re ready to grow your retail business, get in touch with our team.