By David Viado
Visual merchandising
Introduction In this assignment, I will explain how different types of merchandising techniques can affect different types of retail outlet. I will be explaining the benefits of using merchandising techniques and also the consequences if businesses don’t use them at all or if they use the wrong merchandising technique for their business. Techniques used by retailers to market their products Placing of dummies Placing dummies around the store is a good technique to advertise products because it gives customers a good reference of what the product is like before even purchasing it. Placing dummies makes it easier for customer to shop around the store because they’re being presented dummies that shows them what the product will look like and it saves them time so that they can view other products within the store. Fragrance of the store This technique is very useful because it uses scent to attract customers into their stores. Retailers have different ways of using this technique. For example, a bakery would have a wide variety scent of different breads. A perfume shop would have different type of perfume smell in their store. Stores cannot just have a good scent to attract customers to their store. They must have a scent that’s related with the products they sell.
Cakes and donuts displayed. People can smell it.
Micro merchandising Micro merchandising is promoting certain products in the middle of a long aisle. They would need to draw attention from the crowd and for that to happen, they would need special type of decoration. For example, these products could have a vertical layout or a different type of shelving just to make it look more appealing to customers. Lighting The use of lighting technique is to make products stand out in stores. For example, stores could use bright lighting to make a dark coloured product stand out a lot. When using the lighting technique, retailers would need to consider the combination of the colour of the product they’re trying to advertise and lighting they use because using certain combination could lead to a product not looking nice.
Bright lights
Consistency Consistency technique is having the same product category in a shelf or area. For example, a store could have shoes on shelfs on one side of the store. This is consistency because there’s one category of products placed in an area for customers to view. Retailers use this technique to make it easier for their customers to recognise where products are. Virtual Virtual merchandising is stacking products on top of each other’s shelves. This makes it look appealing in customers’ eyes because products are displayed in order instead of all over the place. Retailers do this with a wide range of products to take advantage of this technique. Horizontal Horizontal merchandising is similar to virtual merchandising, but products are instead stacked left to right instead of on top of each other. This means that it appeals to customers’ eyes as organised. This makes it easier for customers to show because products are easier to see if they’re stacked horizontally. Cross merchandising Cross merchandising is promoting 2 or more goods at the same time. For example, Greggs could be promoting a sandwich and a drink. If they are cross merchandised, then people are more likely to buy those two items together. Businesses needs to take their time if they want to do this properly because it doesn’t work with all products. It’ll most likely work with goods that complement each other which is why a sandwich and a drink is a good combination for cross merchandising. Pyramid Pyramid technique is a different way of stacking goods. Goods are stacked in a way it would form a pyramid. These Oranges and Kiwi is an example of pyramid technique. Power of 3 Power of 3 is a technique used to make products easier to identify. This is usually done when 3 items are placed next to each other. An example of this would be these mannequins. Types of retail outlet Department stores Department stores are stores that offers wide range of products for their customers to meet customer needs. These products could be sportswear, books, CD’s, toys, footwear and more. Department stores provide all these products so that their customers would only need to shop in one store instead of going to 5 different ones.
Discount stores Discount stores offers a lot of products to their customers but at a cheaper rate. An example of this would be Poundland. They sell a wide range of products to their customers but at a cheaper rate. Quality of some products may be different to department store, but the store still attracts customers because of the price that they offer to them. Supermarket Supermarkets are retail stores that usually sells food products and household items. Examples of these products would be drinks, medicines, meat products, vegetables, cereals and more. ASDA is a store that provides all these products. Malls Malls is a place where a lot of retail stores operate. An example of a mall would be Brent cross shopping Centre and Westfield. These 2 are Malls because they have a lot of retail store within their mall. They have Marks and Spencer, Apple, H&M and many more retail stores.
Different stores in Westfield Speciality stores Speciality stores are stores that focuses on a particular product. For example, a store could focus on shoes. A store that does this is JD Sports. JD Sports is a good example because they display a lot of shoes on their stores as merchandising. They sell other products too such as bags and t-shirts, but they have a lot of shoes displayed because that’s the product that they focus on. Warehouse stores Warehouse stores sells limited stock of products at a discounted price. An example of this would be box that consists of 100 water bottles. An example of a warehouse store that does this is Costco because they do this with wide range of products. Factory outlet Factory outlet is a retail store that sells goods that’s out of date or leftover stock to people for a very affordable price. Factory are owned and run by a manufacturer. An example of a factory outlet would be Nike Factory store. They would usually have goods there at a reduced price because they’re trying to sell leftover stock.
Supermarket stores Colourization Colourization technique is used in supermarket stores because it helps their customers identify which products are in each area. It helps them identify where they are because of the colour used. For example, in this picture you can see that there are products in a blue colour on the righthand side of the image. It catches customers’ eyes and makes them want to check out what’s on that area.
Virtual Virtual merchandising is stacking products on top of each other to make it eye catching for customers since it’s tall. This picture shows a combination of using colorizations and virtual techniques to make their products look more attractive for their customers.
Organise
Potatoes and carrots are not mixed up. Instead they’re organized in sections. Consistency ASDA shows that they use consistency technique to merchandise their products on this image. This image shows that there’s a section with different types of potatoes and different types of carrots. This is consistency because it shows the same product but showing different variety of it. Different types of potatoes are next to each other, so you could see the difference between them.
This technique is all about making it easier for customers to spot where certain products are and make it easier for them to shop. ASDA uses this technique because it helps their customers identify where everything is easily. ASDA does this by stacking their products in different section of aisles, so it is easy to spot.
Space planning Space planning is a good way of laying out products where customers have space to operate and view products. This is a good strategy because it doesn’t make items look scattered all over the place. Instead they’re being displayed where you can clearly see where they are, and they are nicely organised. ASDA does this by placing their convenient goods next to each other so that there’s space for their customers to look around.
Types of goods Seasonal goods Seasonal goods are goods that you can only obtain in certain season of the year. For example, you can purchase Easter eggs at ASDA when it’s Easter. They will stop selling them once Easter is over. They do the same thing when it’s Christmas. They would sell turkeys and Christmas designed deserts at Christmas because they know that lot of people will buy them at Christmas times. Easter eggs for seasonal goods
Complimentary merchandise replacement Complimentary merchandise replacement are goods that need to be bought with other goods in order for it to be a great purchase. ASDA has a lot of complimentary merchandise replacement because they want to meet customer needs. For example, they don’t just have breads in their store. They have fillings because they know that customers would buy the bread with the filling. Impulse goods Impulse goods are goods customers didn’t intend to buy in the first place. Stores such as ASDA puts goods such as chewing gums or chocolate bars near their checkout counter. Doing this will make customers want to buy goods near the checkout because it’s right in front of them and impulse goods are usually cheap. Chewing gum near selfcheckout counter
Speciality stores Technology Taking advantage of the technology we have nowadays and implementing them into speciality stores takes merchandising to the next level. JD Sports uses touch screens to display their specialised goods for their customers. Customers can interact with the display to get more information about the product. This is a way of showing customers what products they have to offer to them.
Horizontal JD Sports used horizontal technique with their shoes because customers can compare one shoe to another simply by just looking at them. This is possible since they’re stacked horizontally. Stacking them horizontally gives their customers the ability to see the different range of shoes that they can provide for them. JD Sports uses this technique for their specialised goods so that people can see a wide range of goods they have to offer. Blue lights on shelves to make their shoes stand out.
Colour of the wall Colour of the wall technique is only used if the product being displayed must stand out to customers. JD sports specifically used a greyish colour on their wall because it makes their specialised goods just about stand out. If they were to use a red colour for their wall, then their red shoes would just blend in with the wall and may not be noticeable for their customers. JD Sports thinks about these little details to enhance their customer’s experience in their stores.
Lighting Lighting is a good technique of merchandising because it makes products stand out only if they’re used correctly. JD Sports uses lighting to make their shoes stand out for their customers. Customers will more likely view the product since it stands out. These lightings also make their store look attractive. This could possibly attract customers walking by.
Consistency Consistency is all about having the same category of products next to each other. Doing this will make it easier for customers to shop for certain categories of products. JD Sports clearly does this by having one of their specialised goods next to another to merchandise individual ones to their customers.
Types of goods Speciality goods Speciality goods are items that’s unique from other items. These items are usually branded. JD Sport’s products are speciality goods because some of their products are from Nike and Adidas. Those products are considered speciality goods because they’re branded. People try to purchase these products because of their brand and the unique features they have that others don’t have.
Discount stores Organise Discount stores organises their products to make it easier for their customers to find what they want in their stores. This is a good technique of merchandising at the same time because organised layout of products makes it look attractive for their customers. It also saves time for their customers since they do not have to look around and struggle finding specific products. In this picture, goods are stacked next to each other. Different colours Colourization This image also consists of colourization technique. Products are in groups because they have the same colour. This results of identifying specific much easier than not using the colourization technique. This also makes the whole section look attractive since every product is stacked together nicely. ASDA uses colourization on their convenience goods to make them easier to identify. More colours makes it more eye catching for customers.
Horizontal The good thing that Poundland does is that they stack their products in a way that covers a lot of merchandising technique. This image has organise and colourization technique as well as horizontal technique. Products are stacked left to right to make it easier for their customers to identify what products are on the shelves.
Micro merchandising
Micro merchandising is promoting products that are in the middle of an aisle. In order to do this, they would need a different way of displaying these products. For example, Poundland does this by placing them in a stand where they are easily visible in a middle of an aisle. Micro merchandising is used to attract customers to picking up the products that’s being micro merchandised whilst continuing with their shopping.
Consistency Consistency is having the same products stacked next to each other. This image shows that Poundland uses this technique because they have several products stacked next to each other. Products such as Twix bars and Maltesers packets being stacked in order makes it look appealing and organised for their customers to see.
Types of goods Convenience goods Convenience goods are products you buy in a day to day basis that’s inexpensive for everyone. Products such as soap, toothpaste and more. This is the type of goods that Poundland have in their stores. The goods that Poundland have are considered as convenience goods because of the type of products they are and how cheap they sell them to their customers.