The Role of Product Merchandising in Enhancing Customer Experience

Customers may not give it much thought, but the moment they walk into a retail store, product merchandising is everywhere. As a wholesaler, marketing professional or brand owner, it’s important to understand just how vital effective merchandising is.

Let’s dig deeper into the subject of retail merchandising, to understand why it’s so important and how Fit Merchandising can help you by creating eye-catching product displays to increase sales and improve the customer experience.

What is product merchandising?

In a nutshell, it’s about first getting a product noticed by customers, followed by eliciting a desire to purchase. We accomplish this by creating visual displays in key areas of the store. Layouts, lighting, colours, positioning, features and benefits all combine to attract attention and influence the purchasing decision. Pricing and special offers also play pivotal roles in compelling merchandising.

When a shopper strolls the aisles of a retail outlet, products are everywhere. It’s the role of merchandising to get the right product noticed by the right customer.

Influence on customer perception

How we present your products and the layout of the store can influence customer perception and their shopping behaviour. For example, if a particular product is beautifully displayed in a busy part of the store, customers are likely to believe the product must be popular.

Every store has high-traffic areas and competition for product placement in these zones can be fierce. We have established a great working relationship with several top retailers, including Bunnings Warehouse. These relationships enable our team to get your products displayed in premium locations for special promotions.

However, no matter where your product happens to be in the store, we ensure an eye-catching display that attracts the attention of passers-by.

We also have brand ambassadors on-site known as Aisle Angels. When we represent your product, our Aisle Angels are trained in all the benefits and features of your product so they can effectively assist customers and help retail staff with product information when needed.

Visual merchandising techniques

The key to successful merchandising is catching the attention of customers and getting them to stop. Only then is there a chance of making a sale? The more attractive your product display is and the more it stands out, the higher the possibility there is of consumers pausing to take a look at what’s on offer. We achieve this by doing the following:

• Creating easy layouts to view and uncluttered, always ensuring labels are facing forward or upward.
• Working with the retailer within their guidelines, we arrange signage, promotions and POS materials.
• The creation of End Cap displays, and displays in other premium locations throughout the store.
• Replenishing products and stock management.
• Ensuring your products gain maximum visibility by complying with planograms.
• Stock monitoring, in-store audits and real-time reporting.

Strategic product placement

We work closely with retailers to negotiate promotional opportunities to place your products in the prominent areas of the store that get the most foot traffic.

One sought-after location is near the checkouts. This real estate between the checkouts and the shopping aisles is valuable territory for product placement. Everyone passes by this area at some point. By having attractive product displays here, they’ll garner a lot of attention and sales.

Another is at the point-of-sale area itself, where shoppers line up to make their purchases. While customers wait in line they look around. This is the zone where impulse purchases happen.

In-store promotions

In-store promotions are a sure-fire way of getting eyeballs on your product. The promotion could be a limited-time discount, sample giveaway, competition draws or a product demonstration. As people gather around to take a look, others in the store will become curious and want to see what’s going on.

We can arrange interesting and effective in-store promotions to attract attention to your products.

For example, product demonstrations by knowledgeable staff educate consumers, so they understand the value of your product and how it will enrich their lives. Firsthand demonstrations invariably lead to more sales.

Interactive elements and experiential retail

Experiential and interactive product displays are very effective and our Aisle Angels will help with these.

An example of an experiential display is one we did for RELN. The display showed shoppers how to create a worm farm.

Any form of tactile display where people can touch or try out products will lead to more engagement with the product and your brand. Experiential displays help connect customers to your product, making them more likely to buy it.