The Most Basic Mistake in Merchandising
There are many facets of retail merchandising and many ways to make merchandising issues, but the most basic of mistakes is in thinking that merchandising is all about your business. Unfortunately, the customers don’t care about your business, and most customers are not focused on making your store successful. Instead, they are focused on what they need to purchase, how a product makes them feel, or what your store will offer them. This is human nature, and it isn’t going to change, so merchandising needs to be geared toward what the customer is looking for.
It’s All About The Customer
Your retail business is successful because you provide the customers with the things they want. In merchandising, you are presenting those things in the way that makes it easy for the customer to see your inventory and find what they are interested in. Every display and sign, the layout of the store and configuring of shelves, all of it must be developed and maintained with the customer’s experience in mind.
If the merchandising strategies are geared toward emphasizing how wonderful your brand is and how great your store is, those strategies are a mistake because the question in your customer’s mind is, “why do I need or want this?”
Your customers have an advantage; they can go somewhere else to get what they need. The challenge in merchandising is to know your customers well enough that you can show them why they need your products in appealing and engaging displays. Those displays need to be backed with the right inventory and a management system that provides all the tools needed to maintain it.
ChainDrive Retail Merchandising Software provides the solutions for merchandising issues to keep your store the destination for customers who are looking for what they need and want.