What is Merchandising and How It Can Benefit Your Retail Business

If you are just starting your business, chances are, you could use every possible tip on running it you can get! Anyone who knows just about anything about running a brick and mortar business also knows that merchandising is one of the most important aspects of such businesses.

If you are new to this terminology you should that merchandising is, simply put, any action that helps sell your products to a retail consumer. As you can imagine, merchandising plays a vital role in your store’s success by attracting new customers, while making sure your regulars are satisfied with your service as well.

There is a great number of different techniques that you can use in order to sell your products successfully. Some of them include offering your customers with special offers, lowering your prices, putting some extra effort into your display, etc.

As you are about to see, merchandising can either make or break your retail business, so make sure that you know what you are doing and lead your business to the success it deserves!

There are actually three types of merchandising, and all three can be used in just about any specific type of retail businesses.

• Upselling – encouraging your customers to buy the premium version of the product they were interested in
• Cross-selling – encouraging your customers to buy items that go well together, even if their intention was to buy just one product
• Encouraging impulsive purchases

While you may imagine that these types of merchandising sound like a very aggressive campaign, the truth is quite the opposite! A lot of stores you come across on daily basis actually do the same, you just didn’t notice it!

If you are not yet convinced, just think about how many times you’ve seen at least some of the following:

• Interactive displays
• Window displays in interesting and unique shapes
• Shelf signage
• Creating themes that will bundle products together (e.g. Christmas, barbecue season, Halloween, etc.)
• In-store demonstrations
• Free tasting sessions
• Giveaways/samples
• Eye-level product placement
• Well-planned stocking of shelves and displays

As you can see, these types of merchandising are not as intrusive and aggressive as you had imagined them to be! We see such marketing tricks on a daily basis, and we actually look forward to seeing them, don’t we?

So, if you are looking forward to making your retail business as successful as it deserves to be, you will also want to know the ways merchandising can benefit your business, right?

Well, you’ll be happy to hear that the array of these benefits includes:

• Higher profits
• More satisfied and engaged buyers (which includes longer on-site time, of course)
• Faster inventory turnover
• Increased brand loyalty and recognition

As you can imagine, all of these aspects are equally important and are a positive result of doing your merchandising properly.

Of course, you have to spend some time figuring out the best way to implement such a strategy into your business, because as you know, every retail business is special and unique in their own way.

So for example, if you are an owner of a mannequin store, you can give the cross-selling technique a shot – try selling both a sewing mannequin and a child mannequin on a sale, and watch your sales skyrocket!

Or, if you are a bookstore owner eager to encourage their customers to spend an extra buck and keep returning to your store, you can give a special offer of two books for the price of one! The best thing about special offers is the fact that you can send them anytime you find suitable while having your customers satisfied with your service!

Source: Unsplash

However, special offers and sales are not enough to keep your customers flooding in. You will also want to create a special atmosphere in your store and make them feel welcome at all times.

The first thing to do in order to achieve this is to rearrange the shelves, aisles, and the display fixtures. You should make sure that your store’s space flows in such a way that will lead your customers straight to the important sale items too!

As you can see, finding the optimal merchandising technique and successfully implementing it into your marketing strategy may not be the easiest task in the world. However, once it is done it is guaranteed to make your retail business as successful as you would hope it would be.

When it comes to just about any type of business, be it running a brick and mortar store or a digital agency, the most important thing to pay attention to is planning ahead and truly understanding what your business needs in order for your sales to skyrocket!

And now it is up to you to find the best way to benefit your retail business from this point on!