Visual merchandising – there's been a lot of talk about it lately, and for good reason. Are you wondering how to attract customers to your online store and increase online sales? Many factors determine success in the e-commerce industry. One of the key ones was taken directly from stationary sales.
What is Visual Merchandising?
Let's start with the basic concept of Merchandising. It involves influencing customer behavior towards products by organizing the retail space and managing the overall atmosphere in the store. These tactics aim to increase sales. Well-planned merchandising grabs the customer's attention, draws them into the store, and helps them familiarize themselves with the offerings. It's also excellent for the store's image. Thanks to merchandising, the store and its goods actively participate in sales.
Therefore, the key goal of visual merchandising is to create an attractive and coherent visual presentation that communicates the brand's values and identity, as well as sets it apart from competitors. A well-executed visual merchandising strategy can significantly impact customers' shopping experiences, encouraging them to spend more time in the store and increasing the likelihood of making a purchase. Visual merchandising is particularly important in brick-and-mortar stores, but its principles are increasingly being applied in e-commerce through visual product presentation strategies on websites and social media.
Visual Merchandising in e-commerce
Visual merchandising directly influences customers' shopping experiences, engagement, and ultimately sales. As we know, a virtual store, in many ways, does not differ from a traditional one. Similar principles that attract customers to physical stores also work for online ones. These include a friendly appearance, good lighting, decorations, presenting deals, or the ability to thoroughly examine the product.
Remember, you may have the best assortment at the most attractive prices. However, if you don't present it properly, customers simply won't appreciate it. They will choose the competition's offer, which presents the goods more effectively or offers them at a lower price.
Role of VM in e-commerce
- Increasing Customer Engagement
VM in e-commerce helps increase customer engagement by creating attractive and interactive shopping experiences, including through virtual fitting rooms and personalized product options that can increase interactivity and customer interest.
- Strengthening Branding
Consistent and thoughtful online VM helps build brand identity. Using consistent colors and styles contributes to better brand recognition and differentiation from competitors. Remember, the competition never sleeps!
- Creating Product Experiences
VM plays a crucial role in creating a realistic and attractive image of offered products. High-quality photos, accurate descriptions, and interactive content are essential to allow customers to better understand and evaluate products before purchasing.
- Easy Navigation
VM in e-commerce facilitates customer navigation on the website and optimizes the shopping path, helping them easily find products and information. An intuitive page layout and navigation, along with call-to-action buttons, can shorten the shopping path and increase sales conversion.
- Influencing Buyer Decisions
By presenting products in an attractive way that emphasizes their benefits and uniqueness, we can influence the customer's purchasing decisions.
How to use Visual Merchandising in Your e-commerce
- Intuitive Website Layout and Attractive Product Visualization:
The most important aspect is that the shopping page should be clear and easy to navigate for users. Product categories and subcategories should be logically arranged so that customers can easily find what they are looking for. Transitions between products should be logical and clear. Photos/videos of your products must be of high quality, showing detail and color. Don't forget about the page/product card loading time – optimize images on the page so that the page loads quickly.
- Visual Consistency:
After establishing the brand's identity and style, don't forget to incorporate it into your website and social media. Stick to one style to make your brand stand out (colors, fonts, layout).
- SEO and Descriptions:
An often overlooked element, but so important for your e-commerce store. In addition to attractive photos, convincing product descriptions are also important. They should be informative, easy to read and contain keywords for SEO. Don't forget that the photo must also have an appropriate title so that search engines can index your product flawlessly.
- Website Responsiveness:
According to e-commerce research in Poland, we do more and more online shopping via mobile phones (77% of Internet users buy online, and the percentage of Polis people shopping online increased by 4 percentage points compared to last year. As many as 76% of respondents buy via phone, and in the youngest group (people aged 15-24) do it as many as 92%). Therefore, make sure your online store is optimized for mobile devices.
- Positive Shopping Experiences:
Personalize products that the customer most often views or purchases. Recommend and filter content for individual customers. Let them feel pampered.
How to get ahead of the competition?
The world is evolving with new technologies that offer unique shopping experiences. The latest trend and new tool is the implementation of AI and AR in your e-commerce store. With these solutions, customers can virtually try on a product and see how they look in it. Having trouble choosing the right size?
Nothing to worry about – size recommendations based on the user's body measurements will pick the size for you without the need for returns. Interested? Discover our product: Clothr AI-powered virtual fitting for e-commerce. Outpace the competition and join the fashion revolution with the Polish online app Clothr.
• by Aleksandra Stefaniszak | Clothr
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