Retail is growing exponentially and merchandising has become more essential than ever and it is more crucial in retail online because customers can go to another store within a click. Merchandising refers to any activity that helps in the selling of goods to retail customers. It’s the broad range of products that are available and the way in which they are displayed items in a manner that it draws attention and encourages customers to make an purchase.
Due to the growth of online retail following the aftermath of COVID-19 the demand for online retail merchandise is significantly greater. The second time that there has been a boom in the world of eCommerce.
This includes strategies such as:
Discounting
Physical presentation of the product (UIUX)
The decision-making process regarding which products should be shown to which customers and at when.
What are the main advantages of deciding which products should be offered to whom? Let’s see.
1. Controlling the display of product to increase visual appeal and the user experience.
Imagine your users as guests. If we have guests to our homes, shouldn’t we dress up and tidy to make sure our home looks nice? It makes them feel welcomed. Similar to online retail merchandising, online retail draws attention of users and generates excitement.
It gives you the ability to control your users’ experience. It lets you also customize your site to suit the needs of your customers are looking for, thus increasing the engagement of your customers and revenue as well as the performance of your online store.
2. Enhance top of funnel engagement
Retailers invest heavily in SEM, Social Media, and other avenues to boost the number of visitors to their stores on the internet. The aim is to improve the amount of traffic that comes to the top however, these customers do not always stay active. If they aren’t engaged customers are more likely to go away in a split second which increases the cost of acquiring customers and also reducing your profits.
To keep customers interested to keep them engaged, it starts by providing them with something they are interested in quickly and then allowing them to look at the product. This is the first step in encouraging your visitor to the point of sale. The increase in product views is the main purpose of online merchandising. This can be achieved by placing the correct products in the appropriate positions on your website, e.g., site search and product listing pages. This boosts click-through rates from your site’s page’s visitors to product views which increases the chance of converting the final product.
3. Improve visitor retention
You may have previously read on a variety of blogs on the fact that online stores need only 30 seconds in which to entice the attention of a potential customer. You’re competing with other merchants and any other mobile application which wants to capture the attention of your customers. Your customers may not purchase something on the first visit, so they’re unlikely to come back without having been engaged at first. In the end, data-driven marketing can help to increase the number of product views per user.
Each time a product is visited by a user makes them more enthused about your store online, which increases the chance that they’ll return. We all know that in the age of an overload of digital information, even remembering what you bought in the last 24 hours isn’t easy, so when you’ve not caught interest of your customers and they’re unlikely to revisit their experience to your shop. Shopping online is convenient, however retailers are easily lost if they haven’t attracted the attention of your customers.
4. Reduce bounce rates for first-time visitors.
By utilizing online retail merchandising you can keep first-time customers from leaving the site and going to your competitor’s site since they don’t find what they’re looking for. This increases your Click-Through Rate (CTR) and improves your chances of obtaining more customers to your site. (AOV).
It can also increase product discovery by encouraging people to explore further, and make sure they do not “bounce-off” your site.
5. Convert more stores to online
The online merchandising process isn’t just designed to improve the user experience It is also done with the intention to increase sales. The effort is low when you utilize an automated system that is based on data like Tagalys since it is unproductive and inefficient when it is executed by hand. Your online store may become an addition to your offline store.
Similar to sales representatives who show your merchandise to prospective customers online merchandising may aid in automating the sales process within your online store and boost your profits in line with the data. With analytics, you’ll be able to quickly identify the shopping patterns of your customers and tell them what they are looking for. In contrast to the offline environment which requires you to depend on a person to analyze and predict the behavior of consumers using the data of your store this will increase the chances of achieving higher sales at your store.
Engaging visitors at the top of the funnel results in a similar increase at the bottom of the funnel even though there are not make any changes towards the lower end part of it. While it is not as effective for improving low-end of your funnel, such as “abandoned cart” which requires many touchpoints that are off-site marketing improves the engagement on your website when the customer is in your website and you have the greatest chance of making the impression. Since, in the final analysis, the first impressions are what endure the longest!
Copyright Reseau Actu.