Merchandising and marketing are usually confused as the same, but they are actually 2 different concepts. Merchandising is how you present your products in a way that appeals to customers and encourages them to buy.
On the other hand, Marketing is having broader activities like promoting products, services or increasing brand awareness. I believe that any successful retail business needs to understand the relationship between merchandising and marketing.
Great marketing strategy will gain interest and bring customers to your store. Whereas merchandising tactics will drive sales and keep customers returning to your store.
This blog article will help you understand the connection between retail merchandising and marketing. PageFly will define and discuss both concepts and give you helpful tools, techniques, and case studies for effective retail implementation.
Outline
- What is merchandising?
- What is Marketing?
- Does merchandise marketing have a definition?
- The Relationship Between Merchandising and Marketing
- Tools and Techniques for Effective Merchandising Marketing
- Case Studies of Effective Merchandising Marketing Strategies
- Key takeaways
What is merchandising?
Definition of merchandising
Merchandising is the process of selecting, presenting, and promoting products to make customers want to buy your goods.
Small tips about merchandising:
To master it, retailers will need to have a deep understanding in visual displays, pricing and promotions. Effective merchandising makes potential customers notice and remember your store, and it attracts them to buy something.
Retailers can separate themselves from competitors by developing merchandising tactics to create a unique brand identity that connects with their customers. This requires them to understand the target audience, select the right products, and create a compelling shopping environment.
Different types of merchandising
- Product merchandising: It involves selecting and stocking products that fit the store's target audience and brand image. This requires retailers to have a clear understanding of marketing and communication.
- Retail merchandising: This is the way retailers develop their in-store experience to appeal and encourage customers to make purchases. In-store experience includes the store environment, atmosphere, and interactions that customers feel while shopping.
- Digital merchandising: It requires creating an online shopping experience that suits the brand image and attracts customers to search and purchase products. Digital merchandising in retailers could be called ecommerce merchandising.
- Visual merchandising: This progress needs to build attractive displays that showcase shop product features and create a memorable shopping experience. If customers enjoy the vibe that they feel in your store, they will spend money on it.
- Omnichannel merchandising is the way retailers build a progress of seamless shopping experience across channels. This progress will generate customer satisfaction in both online and offline stores to drive sales.
The role of retail merchandiser
Merchandisers are in charge of everything that happens to a product from the time it is delivered to the store until a customer takes it out of the shelf. They have to keep an eye on product availability and presence in various stores.
They also have to ensure that the promotion of specific products will increase sales over time by working closely with suppliers, retailers, and manufacturers. By doing that, they can manage product sales effectively.
Some other responsibilities of a merchandising manager would include:
- Collaborating with suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers to ensure that merchandising plans are properly executed.
- Responsible for keeping retailer follow merchandising strategies
- Developing and managing promotional and advertising campaigns
- Manage product inventory
- Obtaining data on market trends and customer reactions to products
- Analyzing sales data - reporting market growth, expansion, and change
What is Marketing?
Definition of marketing
“Marketing is the art of creating value, communicating and distributing those values to satisfy the problem of the target customer to bring about the optimal profit of the business.” - Philip Kotler
Some little facts about marketing:
At the dawn, marketing was only popular and applied to businesses producing consumer goods. Later on, this field was expanded and applied to industrial production and service enterprises and commerce.
Today, Marketing is applied to most business fields such as politics, culture, society, health, etc., which plays a very important role in the development of businesses.
Common types of marketing
4P in marketing is a marketing model that includes 4 basic elements: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. These 4 elements are also known as the marketing mix
- Product in the Marketing Mix is a property or service that is marketed to a target audience. In general, a product is said to be good when it fulfills a need in the market.
- Price in the Marketing Mix is the cost of a product or service. The goal of pricing is to help maximize profits, revenue, return on investment (ROI) and market share.
- Place in the Marketing Mix is where you sell your product and the distribution channels you use to promote them. To have a good place strategy, you will have to define your location, target customer behaviors, potential distribution channels, etc
- Promotion in Marketing Mix is how you advertise your product or service. There are several factors to consider when you are promoting your product: when to reach customers, effective marketing channels, most persuasive approach,etc
Importance of retail marketing
Retail marketing is essential because it supports businesses in attracting and retaining customers, increasing revenue, and developing brand recognition. It can also help to reduce buyer's remorse and boost customer loyalty.
Because retailers need customers to make frequently repeated purchases, they have to depend on marketing efforts in order to win back customers after each sale. Therefore, marketing will play a critical role in growing the retail business.
Retail marketing has experienced significant expansion and change as a result of the rise of e-commerce. Retail marketing now involves not only foot traffic but also web traffic and online purchases
Does merchandise marketing have a definition?
Yes, but it is not a commonly used term.
Merchandise marketing helps your brand attract new and existing customers. It includes giveaways, contests, thank-yous, referrals, incentives of physical merchandise.
Merchandise marketing is only one part of an entire marketing strategy. It's just another type of marketing.
The Relationship Between Merchandising and Marketing
The ways in which merchandising and marketing are related
Merchandising and marketing are related in several ways in retail. Merchandising involves selecting and presenting the right products in an appealing way, while marketing involves promoting those products to the target audience.
How merchandising influences marketing
Effective merchandising can inform marketing strategies by highlighting the unique features and benefits of products, and by identifying customer preferences and trends. For example, if a product in the store is selling well, the retailer should do a marketing campaign for products with similar features.
Because if products are selling well, they are usually in a trending period. Leveraging trending products will help retailers generate massive traffic and sales.
The way products are displayed and presented in-store can affect the entire branding and vibe of the business, which can influence entire marketing objectives. For example, if a retailer wants to promote a specific lifestyle to generate demand, the marketing campaign will change due to the position of the product display and placement.
Effective merchandising can have an impact on pricing strategies, which can influence promotional campaigns. Further, merchandising can provide valuable insights and inspiration for marketing strategies by identifying customer preferences and trends and presenting products in an appealing way.
How marketing influences merchandising
Marketing is the study of user behavior, preferences, and needs. So that marketing will help reduce the number of failures in merchandising.
For example, market research will help retailers better understand the customers in their area. They can turn to experts to help them or find out about case studies that fit their business model.
But usually, the cost of marketing is also quite expensive, so retailers will pay less for market research. They often focus on directly optimizing the performance of their merchandise operations.
Tools and Techniques for Effective Merchandising Marketing
Quick fact: Merchandising marketing is a definition of combining merchandising and marketing to create a comprehensive strategy. The combination helps retailers to maximize sales and profits by focusing on how products are presented and promoted.
Merchandising marketing techniques
Check out some merchandising marketing techniques below. I bet that businesses can use those tips to increase sales and improve the customer shopping experience.
- Visual merchandising: This is the process of creating eye-catching displays and arranging products in order to attract customer attention and encourage purchases. This technique uses signage, lighting, color, and other visuals to help products stand out.
- Product placement: Putting products in high-traffic areas or near related products can increase visibility and encourage customers to buy more.
- Pricing Strategies: Using promotions, discounts, and pricing psychology techniques to make products more appealing to customers. This strategy is an effective way to increase conversion rates on products.
- Cross-selling and upselling: Offering customers recommendations for related goods or more expensive options can raise the average purchase value. Keep them appealing to your product by its presence.
- In-Store Events: Being unique by hosting in-store events such as product demonstrations, workshops, or contests. You should research and analyze your target audience then make the vibe fit both your business and customers.
- Digital marketing: By using internet advertising, email marketing, and social media, you may improve your reach and better target specific customer segments.
Top 4 essential tools to boost ecommerce merchandising marketing
PageFly - Landing page builder
For the visual merchandising purpose, PageFly is the best tool to help your ecommerce store become appealing and engaging customers.
PageFly is a powerful and intuitive page builder that helps you create stunning pages and optimize your website's conversion rates. It has multiple features like drag-and-drop interface, customizable templates, and advanced elements like countdown timers and product upsells.
Therefore, PageFly makes it easy to create high-converting landing pages, product pages. Plus, its responsive design ensures your pages look great on any device.
If you have a Shopify store, Let PageFly have a try!
Hotjar: heatmaps and behavioral analytics
User analytics is critical for understanding how customers interact with a company's website or product. Businesses can identify pain points and optimize their offering to better meet customer needs by analyzing user behavior and feedback, resulting in increased engagement, loyalty, and revenue.
Hotjar is a powerful analytics and feedback tool that helps you understand how visitors use your website.
With its heatmaps, visitor recordings, and conversion funnels, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your website for maximum engagement and sales. Plus, its user feedback tools allow you to collect valuable insights directly from your customers.
AstraFit – virtual fitting room
To leverage your customer experience, you can try AstraFit. This tool is super suitable for fashion ecommerce business.
AstraFit's virtual fitting room technology revolutionizes the online shopping experience. By using advanced algorithms and machine learning, AstraFit accurately predicts how clothing will look and fit on any body type, saving time and money for both shoppers and retailers.
Guided Shopping - Shopware
More winning products in developing customer experience belong to Guided Shopping from Shopware. Guided Shopping is the ultimate tool for guiding users on your website.
By using data analytics and artificial intelligence, Guided Shopping creates a personalized shopping journey for each individual customer, making recommendations based on their unique preferences and past interactions with your site.
This not only increases engagement and conversions but also creates a more enjoyable user experience.
Case Studies of Effective Merchandising Marketing Strategies
Dunkin’ increases gift card sales 300% by quickly tapping into changing customer motivations
Customer needs for your product will change over time. Specifically during the Covid 19 pandemic, if companies still treat customers as they did before the pandemic, they will miss the customer's motivation to change.
The demand for online shopping increases rapidly during social distancing, so online gift cards on the merchant’s website are an effective way to increase sales.
Dunkin' is a typical company that has recognized that and quickly changed to exploit the new dynamics of customers.
The DunkinCoffeeBreak e-commerce site was born to let customers show their sympathy by sending a virtual coffee break in the form of a Dunkin' e-gift card.
Each Dunkin' order will deduct $1-$100,000 for the emergency fund of the Dunkin' Joy in Childhood Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps families severely affected by Covid 19.
The site is also used for many important community moments, such as Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Week and Mother's Day. Thanks to this gift card, sales increase 300% year on year in certain events.
According to Justin Unger, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Dunkin', DunkinCoffeeBreak.com has nothing to do with existing online gift card programs, but rather allows them to reach new customers and tap into the digital world, which hanging on pegs can't do.
Home décor company generates $734.40 in sales from “penny campaigns”
Patrick Connelly, co-founder, Stellar Villa has successfully used “penny campaigns” in multiple Google Ad accounts for a number of different businesses.
Most businesses will only focus on paying advertising for a few of the company's most profitable products or services. In contrast, “penny campaigns” go deeper into the product set and pay the lowest advertising price.
Penny campaigns can work with both text ads and Google Product Shopping ads. After adding products to the campaign, Connelly set a very low bid.
Depending on the different industry, Connelly often sets bids around 5-20 cents and increases reach if only for keyword outreach.
For example, from May to July, Wall art company runs a shopping campaign with Product Listing Ads for the “Nursery Wall Art” collection. The team has set the ad price to a maximum of $0.2 per click with a daily budget of $100.
Over the course of 3 months, the ad generated 354 clicks at a cost of $60.18 and the ad generated revenue of $743.40.
Penny campaigns can apply to many other platforms besides Google Ads such as Amazon Advertising, etc
Key takeaways
Although merchandising and marketing are often confused as the same concept, they are two different strategies that are crucial for any successful retail business. Effective merchandising presents products in an appealing way, while marketing involves promoting those products to the target audience.
The relationship between merchandising and marketing is complex and interconnected, as they influence each other in several ways. Retailers can use various tools, techniques, and case studies to implement effective merchandising and marketing strategies, such as visual merchandising, pricing strategies, digital marketing, and personalized shopping journeys.
Finally, retailers should stay aware of changing customer motivations and needs, and adapt their merchandising marketing strategies accordingly.
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