Top 5 Elements of Visual Merchandising That You Should’nt Ignore

Visual merchandising is a concept in retail business that promises to improve the aesthetic appeal of a product or store. This helps in seeking the attention of customers and increase sales, which means if you want the performance of your store to improve, you cannot afford to have a store with ineffective and unappealing in-store displays. But, it is also important to understand that visual merchandising is also about different retail designs. Some of the important ways through which retailers can attain success in visual merchandising are window displays, impactful store layout, informative display of products and much more. In this article, we have highlighted a few important elements of visual merchandising that can help you optimize your store’s layout and product displays for maximizing revenue.

Merchandising analytics can offer actionable insights into visual merchandising displays and category planning to enable retailers to work smartly. Want to know how? Get in touch with us

Elements of Visual Merchandising

Element #1: Color is the king

As per the principles of in-store retail analytics, color is considered to be a powerful element that can drive sales. Color has the potential to make or break your visual displays. Therefore, retailers should ensure that the colors are well coordinated and are visually appealing to their customers. Combining contrasting colors can be helpful in creating eye-catching displays.

Element #2: Create a point of focus

If you are into the retail store business, it is important that you create a focal point. This can increase sales dramatically and is one of the main reasons why it is looked upon as a crucial element of visual merchandising. You should always check the displays at your store to ensure that the hotspots and merchandise are easily visible to your customers.

Quantzig’s retail analytics solutions help businesses to optimize merchandise assortment and store-front layout. Request a FREE proposal now to know more about our portfolio of services.

REQUEST FREE PROPOSAL

Element #3: Let your display tell a story

A story always helps when it comes to marketing. So, this is treated as one of the powerful elements in visual merchandising. You should focus on using a powerful, sales-enabling story that can improve the visual display and tell the benefits of buying a particular product to the customers. By doing so, you can understand your customers better and this, in turn, can trigger the sale.

Element #4: Display the maximum amount of merchandise to customers

This is another significant element of visual merchandising. If all your merchandise is displayed well, they can provide the customer with a variety of options to choose from. A circular store layout is more powerful than the traditional ones. This is because it exposes customers to the variety of merchandise than traditional aisles. Therefore, it is recommendable that you should have as many displays as possible, and present as much merchandise as possible.

Request a FREE demo to find out how our visual merchandising solutions can help you to optimize your promotional activities that are targeted at customer segments based on their buying behavior.

REQUEST A FREE DEMO

Element #5: Make wise use of empty spaces

Visual merchandising also focuses on the underutilized space in the store. Generally, it is the area between the displayed merchandise and the ceiling. This space many retailers ignore but you should use it wisely for a variety of things. You can use these underutilized space for displaying information about specific products or brands. Also, it can be utilized for displaying customer testimonials with the name of the customer and their picture.

Get More Info Form

Top 4 Visual Merchandising Challenges Retail Stores Face

Today, in this competitive environment, a visual merchandising strategy plays a very crucial role in boosting sales and profit margins for retail companies. Visual merchandising primarily deals with ‘the look and feel’ of the brand and invokes the sensory receptors of the potential and target customers. Today, brands are realizing the fact that offering a premium experience to shoppers contributes to their profitability as well as results in improved brand goodwill and loyalty. However, putting the right visual merchandising strategy in place is a daunting task. This requires skills to simplify fundamental components in order to provide shoppers with an unforgettable experience. Furthermore, there is a lot of techniques involved in it than just arranging products in an attractive manner. A detailed strategy, planning, and understanding of consumer behavior are very essential for effective visual merchandising in retail stores. Here are five challenges that every retail store faces in visual merchandising:

(more…)

4 Common Visual Merchandising Mistakes that Retailers Must Stay Clear of

Visual merchandising is primarily concerned with invoking the sensory receptors of the target and potential customers. In today’s highly competitive retail scenario, elements of visual merchandising play a pivotal role in saving the business from losing customers to competitors. However, visual merchandising in retail is no child’s play. One wrong judgment in the elements of visual merchandising to use for your store could cost you big. Fortunately, once you identify these common mistakes, they can be easily rectified:

Poor window displays

The window display of the store is one of the most integral factors that initially attracts a customer towards your store. However, not utilizing this space effectively could prove to be a grave mistake for brands. It is essential to include key elements of visual merchandising such as proper lighting, props, and color combinations in the store window. It should be also ensured that the window display is being changed regularly both in terms of the product and the props used.

Understocking or overstocking of products

Situations such as keeping too much inventory or not enough inventory could not only hamper your sales but could also result in bad visual merchandising. It is vital for retailers to ensure that their shelves are always optimally and neatly stacked. Whether a customer walks into a store looking for something specific or simply to see if anything sparks their interest, not having enough merchandise to make the right impression is one of the worst mistakes that retailers can make. Furthermore, though lots of choices are good, seeing them all at once creates visual clutter and a feeling of being overwhelmed. To avoid product glut, retailers can establish and adhere to a planogram which determines what goes where, in what quantity, and when.

Lack of continuity

If the elements of visual merchandising on the window display lack continuity with those inside the store, chances are that the efforts might go in vain. Retailers must ensure that the products that they promote outside the store are easy to locate inside the store. It is also essential to use elements of visual merchandising based on the theme in areas including the point-of-sale systems, in order to forge links to other products.

Overload of promotional message

Customers undoubtedly love promotions and discounts, however going overboard with promotional messages in display could be a bad idea for retailers. Too many promotional elements in visual merchandising tend to give the store shelves a cluttered look, prompting the customers to become indecisive or lose interest. Getting the right balance between promoting the products and the number of promotional displays is the way to ensure optimum sales.

Know more about Quantzig’s analytics solutions for the retail industry

Merchandising Analytics: A Case Study on How an Apparel Industry Client Optimized Markdowns and Projections

The Business Challenge

The client, a leading apparel industry manufacturer with business operations spread across the globe, wanted to differentiate its in-store offerings and cater to the changing customer preferences. The client also wanted to understand how customer behavior is impacted by product replacements and further wanted to optimize their merchandising tactics to improve shopper loyalty. With the help of Quantzig’s merchandising analytics, the client also wanted to seek ways to gain predictive insights on the sales, returns, and pricing effectiveness and efficiently bridge the demand-supply gap with their customers.

The Solution Benefits

Quantzig’s merchandising analytics helped the apparel industry client identify optimal product combinations based on customer preferences and profile and target potential customers with the help of category planning. The engagement also helped the client reduce their spend due to better inventory planning and increased customer retention.

Predictive Insights

With the help of Quantzig’s merchandising analytics, firms in the apparel industry space can efficiently manage merchandises and maintain price competitiveness. Additionally, firms can optimize their storefront assortment, inventory, and efficient forecast demand planning across their operations.

Gain data-driven insights to deliver profitable results by leveraging Quantzig’s analytics solutions. Request a free proposal!

REQUEST FREE PROPOSAL

Apparel Industry Overview

The global apparel industry includes a varied range of establishments manufacturing full-lines of ready-to-wear and custom apparels; apparel service providers, accomplishing cutting and sewing operations on materials owned by others; jobbers executing entrepreneurial functions involved in apparel manufacturing; and tailors, manufacturing tailored garments for individuals. The apparel industry is one of the most in-demand businesses due to the emergence of new trends and production of fashionable clothes. Moreover, the apparel industry plays a critical role in developing a nation’s economy in terms of creation of employment and revenue generation. The rise in disposable income, fluctuations in consumer behavior, the substantial shift toward branded apparels, and promising demographic factors have fueled the growth of the global apparel industry.

However, a few factors are expected to influence in the apparel industry. These factors include:

Increasing competition: Today, staying ahead of the players in the apparel industry is becoming increasingly challenging for companies as the threat of new entrants is relatively high. Therefore, to remain ahead of the competition, leading establishments are facing the need to have seamless and agile processes across their business units.
Online retailing: Consumers today are looking for convenience, authenticity, and creativity in their shopping preferences. With the online players increasing their focus on customer satisfaction, the customers are more likely to move to online retailing platforms.

Many such factors are compelling firms in the apparel industry space to leverage the use of merchandising analytics. Merchandising analytics help companies track new product performance, optimize markdowns and promotions, and improve overall profit margins. Additionally, companies can rely on merchandising analytics to enhance their merchandising effectiveness and store performance.

REQUEST FREE DEMO FORM