Six Merchandising Strategies To Drive Store Sales In 2022

Effective merchandising strategies help retailers stay competitive in a fiery marketplace. With online giants like Amazon moving into the grocery and retail space, now more than ever it’s crucial to get deliberate about how you captivate customers. Here are six merchandising strategies for 2022 that can help drive store sales.

1. Start with color

Color directly influences customer behavior. In 2022, it’s time to take a look at how effectively your store is using this simple tool. The palette you select should be geared to your industry and store goals.

For example:

• Warm colors stimulate appetite: Think McDonald’s reds and yellows
• Cooler colors promote trust and well-being: The Honest Company’s cool pastels
• Monochromatic colors can be bold and iconic: Apple’s clean, crisp white

Plan your use of color for a more effective grocery store merchandising strategy. Color is not only visually pleasing but can also focus attention on a particular value a company holds. For example, Whole Foods has a grocery store merchandising strategy that utilizes a color palette of greens and browns to highlight their commitment to the health of both the consumer and the planet.

With 85% of consumers citing color as the reason they buy a product, it’s a visual merchandising strategy you cannot ignore.

2. Explore experiential merchandising

Post-COVID consumers want to return to in-person shopping, but they also want a better experience. They want stores that are responsive to their needs and hyper-local concerns. They expect personalized, sensory experiences, including solid visual storytelling.

Experiential merchandising that combines AR/VR tools with stunning displays and easy-to-navigate stores elevates the customer experience and puts them in the driver’s seat.

It allows them to feel more in control of their purchases while at the same time opening them to new products and content. It’s the sweet spot where old buying habits meet the craving for novelty and excitement, and it’s a good strategy to drive sales.

3. Improve signage

The number of consumers who will leave a store when they cannot find a product is staggering. Over 67% leave empty-handed when they can’t quickly find what they are looking for (32% leave when the product they want is out of stock, and 12% head to a competitor), resulting in lost sales and potentially negative customer experiences.

Improving signage goes a long way towards ending confused wandering. While it’s positive when customers spend more time in the store, it’s the opposite when they become frustrated by poor directions.

Add clear signs for products, but go even further than that. Capitalize on best merchandising strategies to create signage that:

• Suggests complementary products
• Offers styling tips
• Provides more information
• Tells a product’s origin story

These signs engage consumers and offer a compelling brand narrative that goes beyond simply choosing a box of cereal or pair of sneakers.

4. Enter the Phygital Age

We have entered the Phygital Age, a time when consumers want the convenience of shopping online with the interaction of IRL shops. Visual merchandising strategies with digital tools provide consumers with an expanded array of choices in a concierge-like setting.

Think:

• Smart mirrors with interactive glass to change the lighting or preview different colors of a product
• Dedicated pick-up areas for online purchases
• Reserving products online and trying them on in-store

This marriage of online and IRL is the future of retail in all sectors, and 2022 is a great time to start to think differently about how consumers are shopping.

5. Highlight sustainability efforts

The majority of millennial shoppers (51%) are more likely to shop with a company that is transparent in its effort to provide sustainable goods and services.

This includes things like:

• Labeling products that are sustainably produced
• Showcasing environmentally-friendly packaging
• Highlighting an eco-friendly returns process
• Training staff to answer questions about sustainability in the store

Consumers take note of and remember a company’s sustainable practices and commitment to a better world. In a highly competitive retail market, it can be the one thing that sets your store apart from the rest.

6. Make displays picture-perfect

You have eight seconds to grab a customer’s attention. Take the time to design and implement displays that create a buzz, including:

• Displays that cross-reference other products (i.e., placing bananas in the cereal aisle)
• Pop-ups paired with static displays (i.e., targeting shoe displays in athletic wear)
• Seasonal, immersive displays (i.e., swings under fall leaves for back to school)

In the end, it’s all about the visuals. If you cannot catch a customer’s eye, no matter what you’re selling they will disengage.

This not only means consistent retail execution that includes identical planograms across multiple locations. It also includes creating dynamic, Instagrammable displays designed to promote social media sharing and word-of-mouth marketing.

Designating a space for pictures creates user-generated content (UGC) with teeth — this type of marketing spreads farther, faster than traditional marketing.

How to use Movista’s tools for better merchandise planning

Movista’s retail execution software is specifically designed to help retail teams strategize, organize, and implement all aspects of the retail experience.

So what does this mean for visual merchandising strategies?

Perfect planograms

Movista’s retail execution software offers retail teams the capability for:

• Photo and video verification
• Signatures
• File sharing

These tools allow retailers to share examples for planogram compliance consistently across multiple store displays or locations.

A+ analytics

You can't build a proper merchandising strategy without knowing stock levels, performance statistics, and other data critical to understanding what’s working in your store. Movista’s analytics provide real-time stats on how things are going (and what needs to be changed).

Impressive integrations

No one wants to scrap reliable tools to work on areas that need improvement. Movista features hundreds of integrations so you can keep the software you love while leveling up.

Magical mobile management

One of the most impressive features of Movista’s merchandising software is its mobile-first technology. This means retail teams have access to information when and where they need it.

Perfect project execution

With Movista’s single solution, retail teams have everything they need for creating visual merchandising strategies that pop right in the palm of their hand.

When you’re ready for a better merchandising strategy solution, get in touch for a free demo.