Merchandising Tips to Increase the Customer Experience

A well-merchandised store is the greatest invitation you can extend to your customers. What your customer senses as they enter and walk through your store creates their experience and greatly influences what they will buy.
April 25, 2017 | Retail
By: Sarah B.
Sarah B. came to Acuity this year with a background in retail. She studied Interior Architecture in college and completed an online business education program through Harvard Business School. She also has a wide range of commercial insurance experience and has earned her Associate in General Insurance (AINS), Associate in Insurance Services (AIS), and Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designations. This made her the perfect addition to the Acuity Mercantile team. If she could travel anywhere in the world, she would return to Italy. She spent three weeks there during college studying architecture and design and has wanted to go back ever since.

A well-merchandised store is the greatest invitation you can extend to your customers. What your customer senses as they enter and walk through your store creates their experience and greatly influences what they will buy.

 

Sight is the most dominant of the human senses, so focus on proper product placement before you start working on drawing customers in with scents, music, or events. Also, you never want a customer to have a hard time finding what they are looking for.

 

Here are some basics to keep in mind when you are reworking your shelves this season:

 

Merchandising presentation. Strategic retailers are testing several product placements to see which yields the best sales. They are also using merchandising presentation and visual merchandising. An enhanced customer experience through merchandising is what today’s consumer expects, but taking it a step further and getting local products and other items that consumers in your local area are looking for is a game changer. Independent chains are more nimble and able to make this happen, which will keep customers coming back.

 

Coordinating products. If a customer is not sure what they are looking for—or if they are open to ideas—it helps to show them options of what they may be looking for. If there is an item on special, coordinating it with other items that would pair well or complement the item is a great way to increase sales. Grocery stores pairing ingredients for dinner, or even already prepared food items, have seen success with this strategy.

 

Coloring. Under normal lighting conditions, our eyes are most sensitive to a yellowish-green color. While you may not control the packaging of the products you sell (unless you are packaging the products you sell), placing products according to color may help draw customers to a certain area. Consumers often remember a brand by its color as well, so making sure two brands of tomatoes that both have red packaging are not placed next to one another can help customers find things easier. Also, we cannot forget that color influences reactions. Check out this article on the psychology of color in retail.

 

Easy-to-update signage. Changing tags for individual SKUs can consume labor time and be a tedious task for employees. Using signage that is easy to change so you can change it regularly can help employees and prevent your regular customers from becoming blind to signage that is too familiar. Check out these ideas for changeable graphics.

By: Sarah B.
Sarah B. came to Acuity this year with a background in retail. She studied Interior Architecture in college and completed an online business education program through Harvard Business School. She also has a wide range of commercial insurance experience and has earned her Associate in General Insurance (AINS), Associate in Insurance Services (AIS), and Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designations. This made her the perfect addition to the Acuity Mercantile team. If she could travel anywhere in the world, she would return to Italy. She spent three weeks there during college studying architecture and design and has wanted to go back ever since.