Shopping has always been a visual experience, whether mannequins sporting perfectly chosen outfits or new products exhibited in storefront windows. When it comes to online shopping, shoppers seek out similar experiences. Online shopping often creates a disconnect between consumers and the products in terms of visual experience and displays. Online retailers can reduce this disconnect and make it more engaging by implementing ‘Visual Merchandising’ in their online stores.Read on to find out more about Online Visual Merchandising through 10 simple ways that can help you improve your understanding of merchandising strategies.
Visual Merchandising is a marketing strategy that uses interactive displays, lighting, window installations, mannequin styling, and seasonal displays to attract customers. Visual merchandising is a visual organization of space at a retail store to generate more sales. A retail store can implement Visual Merchandising to create engagement with shoppers and provide brand identity, leading to increased sales. It is one of the key marketing strategies involving product presentation and organization to stir customer interest and leave a lasting positive impression.
Online Visual Merchandising is a way of organizing and displaying products in an online store that would enhance the shopping experience similar to a retail store. Online Visual Merchandising is not only about having an appealing site but, an online space that is easy to navigate, attractive, and has immersive storytelling which compliments customer engagement leading to drive more sales. In the eCommerce industry, an effective online visual merchandising strategy increases and enhances various relevant metrics including engagement and time on site, product views, average order value, click-through rates, add-to-carts, and conversions. Some of the common trait examples between an online store and an offline store include
The way products are displayed and promoted has a major impact on the consumer shopping experience. Online retailers can boost their profit margins by displaying their products in engaging, accessible, and appealing ways. With the right online visual merchandising techniques, the possibilities are endless.Using merchandising solutions, retailers can automate the process of tracking shopping trends, analyze, save time and effort in choosing what works best, and reduce human errors.Relevant features like Search, Product recommendations, and product listings in the visual merchandising tools help optimize and ease the journey of the customers.Furthermore, using merchandising solutions, seasonal marketing strategies, product staging, and retaining a sense of creativity can be planned. Visual merchandising software can help convert in-store browsers into potential buyers when paired with human and machine learning.
Online Visual merchandising is one of the most effective strategies for eCommerce brands as it directly influences consumer behaviour. A few of the strategic ways that you need to consider investing in an effective online merchandising solution include-
If you have a vast range of products (100+) on your website where manual listing and organizing would become complex and time-consuming. An ideal merchandising solution can help in managing and positioning products logically with behavioural analysis and appropriate stacking.
The shopping journey resembles a story with a start, middle, and end. Shoppers enter a space with a motive, consider the product, and make a decision. Visual Storytelling comes into place for this process to be effective. It is the process of conveying information through visual aid which would be simpler and easy to connect with the consumers. In addition, it enables a brand to exhibit its presence uniquely and build a solid customer base. Online Visual merchandising enables you to produce seamless storytelling through aesthetic showcase and creativity.
Online Visual Merchandising is an important part of running a successful business which helps organize the online store and make it easy for customers to find the desired products. Eventually improving their experience while shopping in the store. Visual merchandising is the salesperson that influences the customer to purchase intended products. This is done by placing the right products strategically and making them noticeable.
Online Visual Merchandising can help you utilize your online store to its best potential without any major restructuring or expansion. By creating displays for target customers, strategically placing products, and seasonal displays, the consumers will have more visibility and thereby increase engagement in an online store.
Using visual merchandising solutions, it is easy to gain insights for your online store. Alerts, notifications, add-to-carts, click-through-rate, data trends, and other analytics are the key to determining forthcoming marketing strategies. If you require analytics of how your business is performing online, investing in the right solution is essential. The data from the tool can be utilized for an eCommerce marketing strategy as well as address the challenges of optimizing the overall customer experience.
The right digital merchandising tool can keep the shoppers engaged, increase conversions and boost your sales. Some of the top essential elements of an online visual merchandising strategy include:
A home page is a navigational entry point of an online store. Providing an engaging and interactive experience will help users to browse through their intended product as well as reduce bounce rates.
High-quality images help online stores to stand out and evoke trust. Customers look for a realistic in-store experience and good-quality images can increase their confidence while making decisions. Not only clear images but, an interactive 360-degree view of the product can give customer transparency and authenticity to build brand trust.
Filters helps to narrow down and find the right product for your eCommerce. It not only facilitate finding the intended product quicker but also aid customers who have a broader preference than the exact product they’re looking for. They are one of the essential elements of merchandising strategies that drive the journey to purchase.
Seasonal displays, new arrivals, deals, and sales are undeniably golden window opportunities to boost sales and build brand awareness. Online retailers desire to make maximum use of this period by promoting specific products that can ensure increased purchases and rebalance their inventory. Using visual merchandising features such as product boosting enables online merchants to feature targeted products within a specific period.
Recommendations improve conversion rates, encourage repeat purchases, and boost loyalty. Using visual merchandising software, retailers can display data-driven product recommendations which can increase average order value and enhance the customer experience.
Online Visual Merchandising is not only about making the website look prettier, but it is much more than that. It is an effective marketing tool that evokes customer interest, speaks about your brand, and drives more engagement. It is about displaying the right product to the right customer at the right time.
Technology and data analysis innovations have enabled online retailers tremendous access to consumer data which provides an in-depth understanding of customer behavior and its trends. Though data collection may lead to multiple parameters, it is critical to focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) which would determine efficient growth by consistent monitoring. Some of the top metrics to track while merchandising a store include
It is the key metric that measures the sources which drive visitors to your website. This is an important metric that helps to analyze bounce rates, time spent on site, returning visitors, and more.
A metric that is self-explanatory and directly reflects how effective the merchandising strategies are.
The average amount a customer spends at the business is known as AOV. AOV growth is a great way to boost revenue without bringing additional traffic.
CAC is valuable for measuring the effectiveness of your customer acquisition strategy including the total cost of sales and marketing efforts.
It is quite common in the eCommerce industry to leave without completing the purchase. Cart abandonment rate is the percentage of shoppers who add items to the cart but abandon it before completing the purchase. It is an important metric to troubleshoot the efficacy of an online store.
It is the ratio of the number of people who visit the website and click on the displayed products. It is an indication to help you understand your customers and your target consumers.
One of the most important metrics to track while visually merchandising an online store. Not all the traffic that comes in turns into sales, and therefore tracking the conversion rate is crucial for benchmarking the performance of an online store.
Conversion rate is a vital KPI in an eCommerce industry. Online visual merchandising enables shoppers to find and engage with appropriate products, make products more appealing, and display effective product combinations. These factors contribute to improving conversion rates.
One way to stand out in the competitive eCommerce industry is by ensuring a great customer experience. Using effective merchandising strategies such as appropriate placements of products and easy navigation through the site enriches the visitor experience on the site. They spend more time exploring the collections, have engagement with the brand, and are encouraged to buy from the store.
The overall perception of your website and brand as well as how visitors engage with your content are determined by the design, layout, and structure of your website. Visual merchandising allows you to convey your brand identity through visual elements.
One of the key advantages of implementing merchandising strategies is to have better control over product displays. Online merchants can customize a page according to their customers maximizing the user engagement, revenue, and performance of your eCommerce store.
Searchandising is a buzz word derived from Search+merchandising that involves structuring, curating, and organizing search results. The key to customer engagement is in providing tailored search results that can meet their search intent. Some of the advantages of Searchandising include enhanced navigation, better product listings, and a better insight into visitors.
Post-covid customers’ expectations have transformed to include omnichannel needs. Consumers seek holistic fulfillment in terms of their buying journey. BOPIS, BORIS, and ROPIS enable customers to choose convenience. These omnichannel requirements can be taken into account with online merchandising, which can thus provide solutions to minimize friction in both in-store and online buying experiences.
As consumers sought flexible payment options, the adoption of BNPL is increasingly growing. BNPL allows online merchants to lower barriers to purchase without having to significantly discount their prices and online merchants are embracing BNPL as a winning proposition. As per a study by PR newswire, BNPL payment adoption is expected to grow steadily over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 25.0% during 2022-2028.
Retailers can pin their hero products ( based on best sellers, new arrivals, and seasonal collections) on the top of the collections. It helps shoppers to grab attention and increases the chances of click-through and conversion rates.
Grouping products that fit best together (like in a retail store) is an effective way in an online store as well. Based on types, styles, and collections, grouping products can improve navigation and promote upsells.
Sequencing is a strategic arrangement of products based on various attributes like type, color, prints, and more. This helps retailers build a visual story and improve site engagement.
Visual Merchandising is a combination of art and science that is no longer limited to offline stores, but can be implemented in online stores as well. Industry trends change year on year but the journey of understanding eCommerce space is ever-evolving and we hope this helps you as a reader to understand online visual merchandising.We at Tagalys, use human and machine intelligence to merchandise online stores to optimize collections effectively and drive more engagement which helps you serve your customers better and achieve business goals. If you want to know more about our merchandising solutions, get in touch with us now.
Vanja S
Sheike
"Tagalys makes merchandising effortless. Their data driven sequencing and sorting drastically improves our effectiveness. Tagalys takes the guesswork out of merchandising and product recommendations."
Ryan R.
Camilla
"I love that Tagalys listens to customer needs and has an innovative + agile team around them which can support addressing those needs and adding improvements to the roadmap."
Rafaelle C.
Blue Bungalow
"Tagalys is the powerful and reliable data-driven solution that we were looking for when it came to search & merchandising for our Shopify Plus store. There is no limit as to how custom you can get with your merchandising, which is exactly what we were after!"
Tiarne Warren
Meshki
"The dedication of Tagalys team is evident from the feature developments. I appreciate their effort in understanding our business needs and feedback. We have saved numerous working hours and achieved great performances."