When you run a retail outlet, sales will inevitably slump. Whether it is due to forces beyond your control, or seasonal sales dip, or a decline in foot traffic, all retailers experience sales slump at one point or the other. But you need to keep strategizing how to maximize the sales and visual merchandising software can come to your rescue.
It helps you deliver the ultimate in-store customer experience and have customers keep coming back for more. When customers walk into the store, they do not intentionally think about the sensory experience. Instead, the colors, sounds, smells, temperature, and the way the merchandise feels combine to deliver an experience to the customer psyche that they may not even realize. Retail merchandising is an art and science, and visual merchandising and work order management software are your partners.
This article provides you tips on how to improve your retail outlet sales.
What is Visual Merchandising in Sales?
Visual merchandising is the practice of designing and displaying merchandise in your physical and digital stores with the goal of engaging shoppers and boosting sales. In today’s omnichannel marketplace, it helps create the digital or physical environment that entices your target customers and aligns with your overall retail value plan. Visual merchandising applies to everything from the exterior of your retail store to the entryway and well-aligned furniture and promotional displays. For online retailers, it can design a customer experience with the layout of store merchandise, the UX design of e-commerce landing pages, and the usability and imagery of a mobile app.
Here are the tips to boost sales
Understand your customers to improve Sales
Effective visual merchandising is not all about creating a compelling visual brand and making eye-catching displays. It implies how you need to present the products such as they are important to your customers. When planning the visual display of your stores and digital channels, consider, are your customers looking for great value through low prices? Are they looking for the feeling of luxury and variation? Are they trying to stay abreast with the latest fashion trends? The answers to these questions will enable you to form a better merchandising strategy. With visual merchandising software, you can easily map your customers’ behavior and interests and upgrade your products accordingly. Get a notification for customer visits and target the specified age group easily.
Tell a story
Customers make immediate decisions about whether to look closely at something or keep walking or scrolling. That is why it is crucial to tell a story that can hold the interest of the customers. Once interest is formed, show them what they get when they purchase something. Telling a story using visual merchandising techniques makes it easier for the shopper to connect with the products. You can use sound, touch, taste, or even smell to create a multi-dimensional and memorable experience. You need to constantly audit your stores and visual merchandising software helps in that. It helps you personalize your retail stores and organize the display to attract more customers. Save your time and track the revenue with an errorless service.
Cross merchandise
Cross merchandising is when you place products together in a display that complements each other allowing customers to purchase them together to increase the overall basket size. Grocery stores use this principle, for example, the condiments are always near the bread. Most other retailers also use this same principle of product bundling. Electronics retailers display Blu-ray movies next to the Blu-ray players. Smartwatches are near the smartwatch bands, etc. You can use visual merchandising software to know which products are often purchased together and for which prices.
Offer great customer service
Many retail stores function on a self-service model. It would be much more inviting if you give customers sales personnel who can help them right from choosing the products that suit the customers up till the payment process as well as delivery. This will give you more happy customers. The delivery service is most appropriate for electronic stores as the product is directly delivered to the customers’ doorstep. Here you can use work order management software to streamline order management and efficient delivery.
These are a few tips to boost your retail store sales. However, if you haven’t yet leveraged the power of visual merchandising software then Engear can help. They offer merchandising and work order management software that promote your brand effectively and help attract more customers as well as organize your inventory as per customer’s interests and behavior.
Note* – Engear work order management software is a robust system that helps your field representatives provide consistent and delightful service experiences. With our software, schedule new jobs and assign them to the right field technicians, monitor and track the progress of all work orders, share information immediately, update the status and priority of important requests, and much more. Request a free demo today.