Hello dear readers.
There is a saying, "the store is the extreme and final war zone" where the distinct manufacturers will fight to keep the customer's loyalty and the sales. That saying cannot be any truer; for me it is one of the must accurate and logical affirmations ever said in marketing. And the marketing tool that will deliver get the results in any selling space is a good merchandising.
On previous articles I have referred to the widespread store or selling space setting and how it will work on the firm profitability. In this report I will be going into shelving optimization and how to make this "impersonal sales person" a great laborer so pay concentration and write to me if you have any questions.
You want to build the interest of customers from the moment they enter your store or selling space, you need to optimize the gondolas and shelves so that when they get to them you make sales. What I am saying is that, you can have a beautiful store, very nice sound and environment, lighting and nice population working in it but if you do not maximize your gondolas and your shelves are not responding to a strategic planning of your firm and are not responding to your clientele demand...well I think there is no need to conclude the sentence. Gondolas are the space where you will place your store's inventory. They are leading for manufacturers, distributors (the store in this case) and the buyer or client.
The function of the gondolas and shelves are:
- To attract the customer's attention.
- Facilitate the selection of merchandise
- Sell the products.
- And provoke the purchase action.
Now let's dive into it. Once you have set and organized fixtures, gondolas and all the furniture in the selling space you will start planning the distribution of the product by families so that you will be able to have sections in the store -or selling space. product families are, for example, food, clothes, plastic items, fabric items, foot ware, pet supplies, pharmacy and others and for me, the more sufficient way to institute a selling space is basing it on product families. If you do so, you can harmonize the product packaging, colors, formats and to facilitate (as said before) the selection of merchandise to your visitors. Also, you need to think the products that complement to each other, for example men's clothing and men's shoes or pancake combination and pancake syrup or televisions and Dvd players, and so on.
Once you have set the distribution of the products by house you will start filling up the gondolas and shelves taking in observation discrete factors. Among them, think of how large and deep go each product category you will be displaying according to your firm plan, but before going any further let's take one step back.
When you first superior the whole of product families and categories you might be selling you had to think the bodily space you count on and of policy this matter will also depend on your widespread firm plan. If you have a too large whole of references and a not so big space...where are you going to display the merchandise? Okay, now let's keep going.
When assigning the facings per item you need to thing of how many of this facings are needed for the products to be seen by the passing customer. A basic way to institute these minimum facings you can use is to calculate approximately the whole of time that a buyer takes in his traveling and the whole of time needed to visualize the item. So if you have a 10 feet gondola you should not have too many distinct items in it so the buyer traveling straight through the corridor can genuinely observation the products shown in it and buy them. Another and more professional way to settle the whole of facings for the products is by inspecting one or a combination of the next product characteristics (I mentioned this topics in Another article):The product's demand, the product's profitability and the product's shop share.
The product's request or product's rotation (I would say) is the must leading fact to think in this matter. I am referring to the request of the product in your store or selling place not to the shop as a whole. The request of distinct products can vary depending of the firm type and target group it is focused on. A leading product in any shop does not necessarily is the leader in your store.
The product's profitability is Another big factor due the theorize why you are having a store or any kind of selling space. You are here to make money, you have a space you need to get profits from. That is why there is so many businesses taking this as the bigger factor to assign the facings to a product. Now, for me this should be a secondary factor because you need to satisfy your customers are they are the ones determining the product's rotation. In the long term you are going to make more money retention a satisfied clientele than having more profits of some products in the store.
The third factor is the product's shop share. This is a more manufactures kind of factor that is carefully by the widespread sales of the singular product in your country, the world or shop segment. The shop share (a good one) is gotten trough years of efforts and investment. The owners of a leader are always going to support it and it is good to have them by your side. Also a leader is a leader for the pleasure is giving to it's buyers and they are advent in to your store expecting to find it there. That is why there is regularly a direct relation between a product that is a leader and a product that has a lot of demand.
After you have constructed this puzzle of references in every gondola and fixture you have a good idea of how many facings you will give to each item but don't feel bad if you have to go over and over in this puzzle, it genuinely can get difficult and is not the same to place in real space what you have set in papers.
Let's talk about fixing the products in the gondolas and shelves. I have said that the gondolas are the "impersonal sales person" in a self-service selling space. To give life to this "sales person" you have to use the psychological merchandising tools which are based on perceptions. Merchandising as many other marketing tools are focused on getting action from the buyer by influencing their senses.
Now, gondolas, shelves and fixtures will take life in the same way you use perceptions to get sales. The same are doing the manufacturers when designing the product's containers and labels. They try to see how their product will look on the shelves side by side with the competition. They look for a way to make their product jump out of the gondola and into the shopping cart? That is something you also want so you fix the gondolas in a way to attract the eyes of clients.
To get this reactions, to get attention, you will divide the gondolas in two ways, vertically and horizontally. Horizontally refers to the gondola from one end to the other and vertically refers to the shelves at the level of the floor to the top one.
The gondola can be divided horizontally in three parts, think of A in its beginning, B at the middle part and C at the end of the alley. To be able to do this you have to know of previously plan the customers traveling, where are they going to (usually) start the gondola and where will they conclude it. Products located at the start of the gondola (A) will get less concentration from customers than products located in the middle and the end. Products at the end of the gondola (C) will get less concentration than products in the middle of it.
Something similar happens vertically. Products located close to hand and eye level will have more concentration to those located at floor level or over the head level. Eye level because as its name imply this products will be at the level of the view of the customer, and hand level because the buyer won't need to make any endeavor to reach it.
It is good to group the distinct product lines in a vertical way, it will give your gondola a more uniform appearance and is more comfortable to your customers. Also, if you have a maker that can go from the bottom to the top of the gondola, place it that way. Eyes will feel a good sensation and attraction to products fixed this way. You also need to use your base sense. If you have a product that has lets say, 4 presentations. 1- 120 oz., 2- 32 oz., 3- 16 oz. And 4- 8 oz. Which one do you thing should go at the floor level? The 8 oz. One? No, the 120 oz. One. Remember that merchandising is also about good buyer assistance and making your clientele have a good shopping perceive and feeling.
Talking about base sense, finalizing this report I want you to analyze this two situations:
- Some manufacturers will have a special offer or free item or promotional report attached to one of their item. As a endeavor to make more sales, this is a precious endeavor and they will urge you to place this special offer in the "hottest" shelf, the one that is at the level of hands. But, maybe you don't want that. Maybe you will place this offer on the floor level because in this product family, in this gondola the shelves at floor level are the less selling shelves and you see in this product's offer a way to make it more profitable, a way to attract customers concentration to that level too wile retention the other items at the hand level so you make the whole gondola a more profitable one.
- Another case. There are two maker in the same product family. They are competing for the shop share but as will always be, one of them is a leader and the other a follower. The leader has a 60% shop share the follower has a 40%. If you where to place this products horizontally in your gondola how would you act... This is the idea, the leader should go at position A or C because the majority of customers will look for it anyways you will be having an "A cold zone" warming up and bringing equilibrium to it, because you don't want cold zones, you want the whole space to be Hot.
Finishing this report I will say that every case is special, every store is different. I want to say that you also need to make changes every now and then to bring more value to your customers shopping experience. This changes should not be too drastic because your customers will feel you are changing the furniture at their home, "where did this population put the dog's food?" or "man! This population is always changing things from their place!" You don't want that but you need to go accordingly to the changes in the shop and industry, the point of departure will always be your clientele.
Have great sales.
Merchandising, Gondolas, and Shelf OptimizationLoan to Value Ratio Mortgage BB Usb Cable Micro Usb Thierry Daniel Henry Skills