Read This If You Never Heard The Term “Product Merchandising”?
RohitIf you have never heard of the term ‘product merchandising’, then this blog is the blog for you. For those who have never heard of this concept and want to learn all about it, this guide can help you answer some basic questions you may have regarding product merchandising.
Let’s begin.
What is Product Merchandising?
Product merchandising refers to the offline and online promotion of products. Online product merchandising includes promotion of a product on online stores, websites, apps, and other digital properties. On the contrary, offline product merchandising includes in-store promotion.
We will now look at the various aspects of online and offline product merchandising, define what they are to get you a better sense of what they are and how you can use them.
Offline Product Merchandising
Offline product merchandising refers to product merchandising that happens offline in physical stores. There are two types of offline product merchandising, such as:
- Retail Merchandising
- Visual Merchandising
Retail Merchandising
The marketing effort that goes into the display and promotion of products in a physical retail store is called retail merchandising. This can happen in retail stores, outlets in malls, and other locations such as booths at flea markets, festivals, pop up stores, etc.
Executed by a retail merchandiser, the goal of retail merchandising is to influence a consumer’s purchasing behavior and sway them into buying a retail product.
As such, brands and businesses who display their products in a retail store need to get creative and think of new ways to make their products look presentable and appealing.
Visual Merchandising
Visual Merchandising encompasses a large number of extra functions in addition to product display and shelving functionalities that are common to retail merchandising. Its primary function is to optimise the visual appearance and presentation of a product so that it looks appealing to an on-looker.
Visual merchandising achieves this by using various tactics such as:
- Choosing eye-catching colour schemes
- Improving the floor plan layout according to consumer behaviour
- Using three-dimensional displays as a way to attract attention
Compelling a customer into buying a retail product is an art best perfected by those who are experts at visual merchandising.
Online Product Merchandising
Offline product merchandising refers to product merchandising that happens on digital properties such as websites, mobile phone applications, social media, etc.
Digital Merchandising is a type of online product merchandising. We will now discuss it.
Digital Merchandising
With the growing digitisation of retail business and soaring online transactions that has followed, digitising merchandising has become an inevitable need. As a result, digital merchandising has emerged as an alternate merchandising option for retail brands hoping to monetise their products.
The different aspects that fall within the ambit of Digital Merchandising include the online promotion of a product on various social media platforms, websites, and email newsletters.
The goal of digital merchandising is to build brand awareness and multiply sales numbers. By leveraging social media, a brand can achieve a signature brand look that people can easily recognise as and when they get the chance to lay eyes on the product on an offline store or retail outlet.