Digital merchandising is a challenging job for even for the most experienced ecommerce merchandisers.
Even the savviest practitioner can find themselves frustrated by trying to create a successful physical layout for their web store. This practice often requires juggling multiple programs to gather and analyze data to better understand what customers like and want, which can be a giant puzzle.
Identifying all of the pieces that fall under the digital merchandising umbrella is necessary before trying to solve the puzzle.
What follows is a list of some of the more important elements that affect the way a merchandiser will choose to make product catalog decisions:
- Business intelligence and real-time data
- Legacy knowledge gleaned from industry vets
- Elements related to site navigation and user experience
- Conversion rates
- Inventory levels (incl. sub-inventory categories like color/size)
- Profit margin levels
- Regional considerations (e.g. weather, local culture, geographical trends)
- Trending and market buzz
- Color sequencing strategies
- Attribute assignments and product tagging to optimize product searchability
- Social media sentiments and events
- Planned marketing promotions
Within a traditional “bricks and mortar” store environment, a merchandiser can observe shopping behavior firsthand. From these observations, it is relatively simple to make adjustments to store layout, product placement and display features to optimize the customer experience and facilitate the highest possible conversion rates.
For eCommerce merchandisers, this process is not as simple. Think about it: In a physical store, a merchandiser can walk over and change out an endcap item or the product displayed prominently upon entering the store. In an online store, that change is not as easy and requires tinkering around in a backend product management dashboard that may or may not require IT know-how.
Merchandisers operating in the online realm have to work a layer removed on two fronts:
First, without having an actual eye on the situation, eMerchandisers rely on web analytics, sales reports and other data sources to create a picture of what could be happening. Because they can’t actually see their customers, they’re simply deducing best guesses based on the information they have access to.
Second, they can’t physically make the changes, edits or additions needed. They’re required to manipulate data and information within a software or web-based dashboard that will then affect the change they want to see.
This is why it’s so important for eCommerce teams to have access to visual merchandising tools that can work to mimic an in-store merchandising experience.
With these solutions, eMerchandisers can tie the data and analytics to the visual layout seen on product and landing pages and drive better-informed decisions and improve the customer experience.
Improving profit margins is at the top of all eCommerce merchandiser’s to-do lists which is why we’ve created The Digital Merchandiser’s Guide to Maximizing Margins with Visualized Data eBook.
Download the eBook to learn more!
