How Social Media Affects Retail Merchandising
The connection between retail merchandising and social media is clear and immediate because what is trending on social media is what your customers are interested in. What people are interested in affects what they purchase, and merchandising is focused on stocking what will sell. That’s why it’s important to include social media data in merchandising analysis and reporting.
Community Influences Customer’s Preference
Social media platforms are simply communities that have formed where the opportunity to connect with others became available. Marketing is simply letting those communities know what they can purchase from your business. Good marketing informs and convinces the consumer to become a customer. But in order to convince, you must communicate effectively and make connections with your audience.
Users Generate Valuable Content
Everything that your customers say about your brand and your merchandise is user generated content. This includes product reviews, questions asked on forums, and any other material written by the public about your business. When a customer standing in the aisle of your store looks up online reviews about the product on the shelf, that content is influencing their purchase.
Maintain Retail Merchandising Contact With Your Community
Retailers who neglect social media are closing their eyes to the huge influence it plays in the choices customers make. Every social media platform that your targeted demographic market is on should be one you are active on, too. Time-sensitive promotions need to be presented in the format customers have requested, like SMS texting or email. Websites need to be mobile friendly and all outreach needs to be monitored to make sure it actually reaches your targeted market.
Every social media platform is an opportunity to connect with your customers and find potential customers. It’s a good idea to assign staff to particular platforms with the goal of quickly responding to questions or requests. Creating surveys and contests is another good way to see what people are interested in seeing on the shelf. With social media, you can create a buzz to see if there is interest in new products, analyze trends to see where interest and purchase intersect and make merchandising decisions that are effective and profitable.
ChainDrive Equips retail merchandising To Respond
ChainDrive’s Retail Merchandising software component offers reporting and analytical tools that enable your merchandising team to keep track of all the data and make sense of the flood of information that social media adds to their responsibilities.