What is the difference between merchandising and visual merchandising

Product placement and displays play a vital role in retail design. These strategic techniques can ultimately be the difference between making a sale or not. Both merchandising placement and visual merchandising are crucial aspects of designing a retail space. However, although some people use these two words interchangeably, they are in fact two very different design components.

In basic terms, merchandising presentation is a design strategy that involves placing merchandise in a neat and organized manner to make it easy for the customer to shop. While merchandising presentation is not meant to be boring, it is also not designed to be the main attraction in the store. Its main purpose is to enhance the shopping experience by making wanted products easy to locate.

A planogram model is typically used for merchandising presentation. For retailers with physical and digital stores, omnichannel merchandising involves creating a seamless customer experience—even if the customer moves from one to the other as in the Bonobos example above. Omnichannel merchandising also referred to as omnichannel retailing is a topic of increasing interest and research—especially because physical stores are increasingly embracing digital.

Additionally, omnichannel retailing is often used to describe all of the elements within a single customer journey—regardless of where each element takes place. A customer visits a digital store through finding an organic piece of content via a Google search. From there, they search the online store and build out their cart, but then at the last minute they abandon their cart. The customer accepts the offer and completes their purchase. This experience could be referred to as an omnichannel merchandising experience because the customer moved from a search engine, to on-site, to their email, and then back to on-site.

The types of merchandising and certainly the merchandising examples covered below can be understood on a deeper level when paired with knowledge of a few merchandising techniques. Consider the technique of cross-merchandising, where items that are in some way related are displayed in close proximity to encourage additional sales such as bread with peanut butter. Again, this is not meant to be a complete list of merchandising techniques, but it can serve as a base from which to improve your overall merchandising knowledge.

Making a strong first impression in merchandising is a critical aspect—whether it is to entice window shoppers at a physical store or those who have recently landed on the home page of your website.

Retail merchandisers try to control as many variables as possible, knowing that those first initial moments are what may influence the customer to stay and browse around. While these physical first impressions may certainly impact that first step into the store, first impressions are increasing formed digitally—through an advertisement on television or Instagram, for example. Similarly, making a strong first impression in digital merchandising is about controlling a variety of variables.

Take site speed, for example. Speed is also a critical component when it comes to customers searching on your site. Site search is often one of the first ways a potential customer engages with a site, so making a strong first impression here can lead to a better customer experience and even revenue increases. Unfortunately, many digital retailers are still asking customers to type in their product search, click submit, and then hope that they stumble on something relevant.

For the above reasons, more and more retailers are taking site search seriously. Our own research revealed that intelligent site search is one area where elite retailers are separating themselves from the pack. Manipulating light is an important part of all types of merchandising. Just as a theatre production uses light to convey moods and highlight characters and scenes, modern merchandisers use light to display products, highlight particular promotions, and even influence the mood and energy of their potential customers.

The use of color plays an important role in purchasing decisions, and lighting can be used to highlight certain colors and even steer customers in certain directions. Apple, for example, is known for using clean white backgrounds to display their steel gray computers—and they keep this consistent whether you are in their physical store or shopping on their site. This color and lighting contrast conveys modernity and mechanical or technological precision—elements that many people would associate with the Apple brand.

Every type of merchandising is influenced by traffic. This can include everything from the foot traffic of customers walking into your retail store to the digital traffic of potential customers visiting particular product pages.

Physical traffic can be influenced by end caps, floor plans, and product displays. Digital traffic can be influenced by search engine optimization, social media, and other digital marketing initiatives.

Consider how many major supermarket chains place the milk in the back of the store. Essentially, your retail space has to be your most productive and most efficient salesperson, and visual merchandising employs the art of optimizing your retail store and visual displays for maximum revenue. A post shared by Rose City Goods rosecity. Best practices cover everything from creating effective window displays that draw the eye of prospective customers to the signage you put up to your store layout and much more.

Shoppers will come into your store and scan for visual stimuli. Once you capture that audience, you can focus on different product exposure strategies that sell for you.

Done well, retailers can influence how much time a customer spends in-store and the choices they make. This could be holding a plant pot, sitting in a comfy chair, or trying on and using sample products. Retailers like Los Angeles—based Beautycounter are even designing content studios in their shops.

They host livestream events, makeup demos, and community functions. They also invite customers and influencers to use the content creation studio to share their work online. Great visual merchandising inspires shoppers to share photos of your shop online. Shoppers can post Stories or photos of your products and setup on their feeds. Some types of visual merchandising are more practical than others. Some are simple displays you can DIY in a few days, while others take more budget and resources to accomplish.

One common and effective form of visual merchandising is the window display. Retailers use window displays to present new products, highlight promotions, and show off their brand personality. Creativity in a window display is crucial for a small retail business. You want to show your products clearly. Humans have a subconscious attraction to striking visuals.

Window displays not only grab their attention, but help them envision how products will look on them or in their homes. These displays inspire would-be customers and make it easier to buy once they are in-store. Read about these unique window displays to get inspiration for your own store. Retailers are always working to create unique in-store experiences.

A recent trend has brought the physical and digital worlds together through interactive experiences. A visual merchandiser is the person behind the magic. They are professionally trained and may be tasked to manage the following:. All types of retail stores can benefit from visual merchandising. Some of the key benefits include:.