Visual Merchandising Companies and the Psychology of Visual Merchandising

Visual merchandising is not as simple as popping up a display promoting your brand and products. There is a psychological aspect to visual merchandising that must be considered if you want to optimize the success of your visual merchandising. 

Consumers often make purchasing decisions based on emotion. Psychology is a science of the human mind and human behaviour. The dictionary defines psychology as the science dealing with the mind and mental processes, especially in relation to human and animal behaviour. The connection between what your customers think and feel and how you market to them makes an incredible difference in how effective your visual marketing display is.

The retail industry is very competitive and visual marketing is a major way that brands differentiate themselves from one another. Even if your products are unique, all brands have competitors and you must differentiate to stay competitive. Some retailers and even brands see visual marketing displays as merely cosmetic and don’t understand how they directly impact brand loyalty and sales. Visual marketing is one area that all brands should allocate budget funding to because with all of the choices available to consumers, visual marketing displays continually remind consumers that your brand is available in-store.

The best visual marketing displays will capture the attention of the consumer and translate into increased sales and so they must attract the customer. This requires more than art direction. The best visual marketing focuses on the phycology behind what motivates your target customer. Your visual marketing display is not about you, it's about your customer.

Your visual marketing displays are even more successful when coupled with an in-store sales representative or demonstrators, whose role is to engage passers-by and talk with them about your product or even offer them a sampling or discount voucher enticing them to buy. This is especially crucial with respect to new product launches.

Some of the most successful visual marketing campaigns are successful because the brand has had the foresight to work with a visual marketing company to ensure that their displays are distributed at retail effectively. Visual marketing companies that handle display builds and sales support are able to make sure that visual marketing displays are set up at key retailers and that there are sales support representatives that work for the brand and not the retailer available to engage and capture  consumers.

Often brands will invest in visual marketing displays and then the employees at the retailer will place them in a place that doesn’t give them the exposure that they need to be effective. Where your visual display is set up in-store is very important because an optimal location will ensure that more customers see the display. Visual marketing companies help brands overcome this challenge by attending the retailer with the visual marketing display and influencing where it is placed in-store. They are also able to alert the brand if a retailer is asking that the visual marketing display be placed in an area where it is not going to be effective.

Understanding the psychology behind visual marketing and working with visual marketing companies are the two best ways that a brand can have more success at retail, boosting sales and increasing their brand exposure.

For more information about the psychology of visual merchandising or to find out about our solutions for visual merchandising and in-store marketing, please call Storesupport at 1 (877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Brands Who Cannot Control In-Store Merchandising Look to Retail Merchandising Services to Boost Brand Sales

At a recent Retail Industry Council event a major topic of conversation was the future of retail and what impacts e-commerce will have on bricks and mortar retail locations. While e-commerce is resulting in major changes to the way we shop in some types of retail, such as electronic stores, book stores, music stores and more, the food industry at retail is unique. 

When you are shopping for food, you want to be able to touch and feel the produce you are buying, feel the texture of baked goods, and thoroughly inspect your meats. These are reasons that many consumers will continue to want to physically go to the grocery store to purchase their foods. While there have been grocery services around for years that enable you to buy online and have the food delivered to your door, they haven’t managed to make an impact whatsoever in the way people buy food. 

This is why the in-store experience that a customer receives continues to be so important to the success of brands that sell their products at food retailers. It is also a major reason why brands must ensure that they maintain some level of control over in-store merchandising.

Leaving in-store merchandising to the retailer is a dangerous plan because the consequences to the brand can be significant.

Consumers are creatures of habit, especially in the retail food industry. Once a consumer gets hooked on a brand they will often add it to their grocery list to be purchased week after week. When a consumer visits a store and suddenly the brand that they love is not available because it is not on the shelf or has been moved and they can't find it, many consumers will try another brand that sells the same product. If they love the product, the original brand could lose their customer’s loyalty altogether.

A brand’s success at a retailer depends on its sales. Brands that sell more will be able to negotiate better product placement and priority, so it is crucial that brands that are not dominating their market space at a particular retailer hike up their socks.

Many brands are turning to merchandising services to boost their sales at retail. Merchandising services take the control of in-store merchandising away from the retailer and empower the brand to have more control over their customers’ experiences, which then results in increased sales. Merchandising services will go to all of the retailers where the brand’s products are sold and ensure that products are stocked and on the shelves and also ensure that if there is a product placement issue that the brand is made aware of it immediately, rather than finding out when seeing that sales have dropped at a particular retailer. Merchandising companies also assume the role of setting up in-store displays and literally become the brand’s ambassador at retail.

Brand’s that want more control over their in-store merchandising are best served by looking to retail merchandising services  to ensure that customers are always able to access them, and to ensure consistent profitability across the retail stores where their products are sold.

For more information about how you can take more control of your in-store merchandising and our merchandising services, please contact Storesupport by calling 1 (877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Labour as an asset, not an expense

Written by Nancy Kwon

Published in Canadian Grocer

June 20, 2012

What do QuickTrip convenience stores, Mercadona, Trader Joe’s, and Costco all have in common?

If you guessed lowest prices, you’re only half correct.

Not only do these retailers have the lowest prices, but they also invest heavily in store employees, which in turn results in better customer service than their competitors.

In an article in Time, Zeynep Ton, a professor of operations management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, says that her research has shown that by underinvesting in their employees, retailers are actually making their operations much more inefficient, and less profitable.

With globalization, companies have moved good paying manufacturing jobs overseas, leaving low-wage, low-skill service jobs in retail outlets that don’t offer many benefits.

But Prof. Ton says in her research on low-cost retailers who spent more on labour and still competed on price showed that there are more efficiencies that result with a highly trained, and motiviated employees.

Ton’s research showed that in a typical supermarket that carries nearly 39,000 products, runs 100 promotions a week, and serves 2,500 customers a day, store employees must constantly shift inventory from storage into the right shelves to meet demand.

She writes: “In my field visits, I consistently found that with so many products, promotions, and storage areas, a task that ought to be simple–such as shelving toothpaste–is not. Such a surprisingly complex operation requires something uniquely human: judgment. Poorly paid, poorly trained, and poorly motivated employees have to monitor which products have sold, decide what to keep on the selling floor and what to move to and from backrooms, and remember which backrooms contain which items.”

She adds that the best information technology in the world can’t help you if your products aren’t where they’re supposed to be and your employees can’t find those products; you’ll only lose a lot of sales.

Simply put, Ton’s research showed that cutting labour costs would only help short term.

Here’s how some retailers are doing things differently and succeeding, according to the Time article:

Full-time employees at Trader Joe’s earn $40,000 to $60,000 a year, while Costco promotes from within (98 per cent of store managers being promoted from within); QuickTrip meanwhile has a huge “floater” staff to allow employees to take more vacation and sick time; and Spanish supermarket Mercadona employees are cross trained so that everyone can do a variety of tasks.

Not surprisingly, Ton’s study showed that turnover in these companies is much lower than the industry average.

And with the growth of e-commerce, investing in human resources is more important for brick-and-mortar retailers.

At a time when consumers can buy anything, anytime online, the key differentiator for grocers could be about the people again.

Retail Merchandising Services Are Crucial to a Brand’s Success at Retail – We Take a Look at 3 Challenges Brands Can Overcome at Retail

Retailers have incredible power over a brand’s in-store performance, especially as it relates to retail merchandising. The experience that a customer has with a brand at a particular retailer directly impacts how they feel about the brand and their future buying patterns. There is a real double edge sword at retail because a brand’s sales will determine (with bigger retailers) how a brand is prioritized and, at the same time, the actions of a retailer can directly interfere with a brand’s sales.

Larger retailers will establish policies that will determine how they will prioritize your brand and where they put your merchandise based on your product sales, which presents its own challenges. Meanwhile, smaller retailers are less organized this way but may make business decisions like cutting back on staff that can result in other challenges as it relates to retail merchandising.

Poor retail merchandising can have devastating impacts for new and smaller local brands who sometimes find themselves struggling to compete. For a brand to ensure that it is successful it must take control of its in-store presence. Brands cannot expect retailers to provide retail merchandising services, and brands simply cannot rely on the employees of retailers to set the stage for a positive customer experience. Retail merchandising services become important because the decisions that a retailer makes may result in your product not selling, and since you can’t count on retailers to provide them you must ensure that you have a plan in place to deal with retail merchandising.

The three most common issues that we see brands encounter at retail that can be solved through retail merchandising services, and that occur when brands are not in control of their presence at retail, include:

Sometimes retailers will arbitrarily move a product unbeknownst to the brand. For example, when a customer visits a grocery store, they know exactly where to look for the products that they like to purchase every week. When a customer cannot find a product where they are used to seeing it, they may choose to purchase a product offered by a competing brand. Also, depending on where the product has been moved, new customers may not find the product and when a brand does not have a measure in place to stay on top of this, they may not realize that there is a problem until they see it in their bottom line.

Retailers, especially those who take cost cutting measures to save money by laying off staff, will sometimes be lax when re-stocking products on the shelf. The product may be available in back stock rooms but because staff are busy, spread thin and working for the retailer and not the brand, re-stocking your product may not be a top priority. The result is that loyal customers and new potential customers alike will have no choice but to purchase a similar product from a competing brand.

Retailers decide where they place your merchandise to begin with. Brands may have less control with big box stores as far as where their product is placed, but do have some leverage with smaller retailers like grocery stores. When a brand’s product goes into the store it is important that the brand is engaged in the product placement process to ensure that the product isn’t placed in a section that isn’t the most ideal for the brand. For example, should parmesan cheese be placed with the cheeses or in the section where pasta noodles and sauces are? The same is true for visual marketing displays. Where a retailer chooses to place your visual display will directly impact how much exposure it gets.

Working with merchandising companies who offer retail merchandising services is an investment worth making and a brand’s best measure to ensure that those problems we have outlined in this article don’t occur. A small investment in your presence at retail will mean the difference between becoming a top seller and falling flat.

For more information about retail merchandising and retail merchandising services please contact Storesupport at 1 (877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Brand Loyalty Services Thwarts Social Media Impacts to Brand Loyalty

The social media boom has had major impacts to brand loyalty at retail. If anything, brands that have been able to properly leverage this very popular marketing medium have been able to improve brand loyalty. 

The Financial Times recently released an article, “Can Your Brand Win With Social Media,” which speaks to social media as being one of the most important global developments in media, marketing and technology today.

Through social media consumers can “like” a brand’s page on a social site like Facebook or Twitter, and scan a QR codes on in-store displays or on signage on the highway to receive discounts on merchandise. Brands can benefit from positive feedback made on their social sites by happy customers which can open them up to their social networks with an endorsement.

While the positives far outweigh the negatives, social media does have its “negatives,” and brands must address the negatives in order to ensure continued brand loyalty. Just as a consumer can take to a brand’s social media presence, or their own, to share positive experiences, they can also do so to complain about a bad experience. This is very damaging to brand loyalty because not only could the brand lose the customer who had the bad experience but also the brand loyalty of many in their social network. At the JVS Strictly Business event last year the key note speaker was Jordan Banks, Managing Director of Facebook for Canada. One interesting point made at the event was the stat that a consumer is 4 times more likely to buy from a brand that one of their friends or family members “likes”.

Another major challenge for retailers and brands alike is the emerging trend that CNN has tagged as “Showrooming”. This is where a consumer visits a retailer, sees and takes photos of products that they like, and then return home to try to find them online for less.

Social media and smart phones have also changed consumer buying psychology because of the speed at which they can get information or find what they need. If your brand’s products are not available, out of stock or difficult to find, consumers often do not have the patience they used to. They will simply select another similar product offered by a different brand.

The only way that brands can thwart the negative impacts that social media have on brand loyalty is to go above and beyond the call of duty to deliver a customer experience that exceeds their customers' expectations every time.

For this to happen, a brand must be on top of what happens with their products at the retail level and making an investment in brand loyalty services is a start.

There is no guarantee that every consumer is going to like your product, that is a different issue altogether, but you can take steps to guarantee that the customer receives top notch services and support when they look to purchase your product at retail. Your product must be accessible and available to consumers where they expect to find it and when they need it.

For more information about our brand loyalty services please contact Storesupport at 1 (877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.