As noted above, most in-store merchandising audits are conducted from the outside-in. Whenever possible, audit sections should be laid out to match the natural path of an auditor’s visit. Don’t forget to employ “speed bumps.” True 6 rights of merchandising to their name, these displays are designed to slow customers down and pay attention to your product. Speed bumps are especially helpful for retailers with long aisles layouts where they break the monotony with a new focal point.
- It doesn’t matter if the store is an independent mom and pop shop or a national chain.
- Seasonal merchandising and CPG-paid bulk floor displays come to mind.
- Below we detail best practices to consider for building a merchandising audit checklist and executing a merchandising audit program.
- Better serving the estimated 61 million Americans with disabilities makes good business sense.
“The right people” can mean knowing your customers — demographics, psychographics, buying habits, politics, and pain points. This understanding allows ecommerce businesses to tailor their product selection, prices, promotions, and overall customer experience. Your success as a retailer depends almost entirely on the five rights to merchandising as espoused by the Fashion Institute of Technology. These rights are not entitlements, rather each represents the correct way to ensure that your products are sold. However, high demand inventory can maximize your profits, helping to ensure retailing success. Don’t get rid of products just because they don’t turn a ton of profit.
What to Include on a Merchandising Audit
Poor lighting makes your store appear drab and product lifeless. Worse, it can discourage shoppers from even entering your store because it can look unsafe or dirty. In the above section, we outlined focus areas to maximize merchandising compliance.
Keep them clean, well-lit and rotate often to keep attracting valuable foot traffic. As a best practice, showcase the newest and/or high-value products in the window or nearest the inside of the entrance. They are also tasked with keeping things clean, retagging shelves, and stocking new items upon delivery.
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And it’s not just the demographics that are important, it’s the psychographics, or what some call lifestyle marketing. Think of your merchandise as it would exist on a bell curve. On the right side of the curve lives expensive, prestigious merchandise that makes up 10% of your store’s products.
These businesses sell goods and employ tactics such as special offers and good display to attract customers. Merchandising businesses can offer any type of products, can be independently owned or part of a chain, and can be a physical store or an online business. The differentiating factor is what it offers – whether it provides finished products to consumers or services.
Retailing is a very competitive field, and business people need ways to lure customers into buying from their stores. Product merchandising is a means of making window shoppers and browsers buy products in a specific store. Therefore, customers https://1investing.in/ are compelled to buy more than they intended by creating awareness of product existence. Want to start auditing your stores for merchandising compliance today? Use one of our sample checklists below and set the bar for performance.
As note above, research by the Brigham Young University found that displays with supporting signage outperformed displays without by 20%, so don’t discount signs all together either. Simply ensure your displays are not too busy, distracting or tacky. If you observe that customers often do not get to a display containing high margin items, shake up your store by moving inventory onto different walls or sections. If applicable, hygienic testers or samples should be provided with a waste bin close by. Broken displays, burnt out lights, fraying carpet or faded signage are all turn-offs.
Retail audit software allows you to disable entire sections and items at certain stores according to the store type or banner. It also means that head office can build one checklist for all locations. There are numerous out-of-the-box software solutions made for retailer communication and collaboration (most with a free trial). Distribute planograms to clearly communicate where and how products should be displayed. Ensure there is adequate time to ship product and display props.
While the store may have been required to purchase in large quantities, they offer the product to you in a small, personal-use size. Some of the examples are clothing stores, grocery stores, and bookstores. These businesses function by taking lots of products from either wholesalers or manufacturers at a discount and then reselling the products to make profits. For these businesses, there are cycles in merchandising, and they are particular to cultures and climates. The cycles may also include holidays, school schedules, and predicted weather outcomes that affect the types of products offered.
Think about audit frequency
To ensure supply chain success, having the right product on the market is the first right to merchandising. The Boston Consulting Group in cooperation with the Wharton School of Business notes that collaboration and coordination are essential elements to making this happen. Extensive research is required to ensure that demand for the product exists and that all departments are focused on successfully bringing this product to market. Understanding how to merchandise properly is a challenge for many retailers. What seems simple to shoppers is not so easy when you’re the one responsible for moving product.
This is a great way to delight your customers and encourage sharing. Merchandising has moved well-beyond the four traditional seasons. The Wall Street Journal lists seasons, noting retailers keep inventing more! Seasonal merchandising is all about evoking emotional and generating excitement. Seasonal merchandising is also a way to turn seemingly everyday product into impulse buys.
Finally, having the right quantity of products likely requires flexibility to adapt to changes in demand. That focus would impact the products, description, and promotions. With this being the case, it makes sense to emphasize and improve merchandising in your store.
Difference Between Merchandising Business and Wholesale Business
Supply can be affected by the amount of storage space available, how fast these products can be manufactured and supplier availability. Demand is based largely on consumer appeal for the product and the price. A lower price can increase demand, while a higher price can restrict demand. Developing a linear equation can help the retailer find the right price point to coincide with demand.
The main type of merchandising business is retail business. Lastly, product merchandising refers to promotional activities that lead to selling a product. The process can involve physical promotion or digital, but all these activities are geared toward advertising a product in a retail business. A merchandising business, sometimes called merchandisers, is one of the most common types of businesses we interact with daily.