In 2019, global retail sales were recorded at about 14.1%. Ahead, this figure sets to rise. eMarketer anticipates that global retail sales will reach 22%.
Online shopping is famous all over the world because of the accessible procedures. The customers may buy anything online, relaxing at their homes, and may also request next-day delivery.
As every day, various eCommerce businesses start their business journeys; online retailers should stay ahead of the curve to attract customers. One of the most important ways that help in magnetizing the customer’s attention is eCommerce merchandising.
Today, in this post, we will talk about eCommerce merchandising, how eCommerce merchandising is different from traditional merchandising, its benefits, strategies, and many more. So, let’s start.
What Is eCommerce Merchandising?
When we shop online, we need to buy through an eCommerce store, which sells goods through a site. Here eCommerce merchandising comes into play; it’s all about how the businesses sell those goods to the customer.
eCommerce merchandising incorporates branding, engaging images, product placement, and thinking innovative ways to showcase products. The main aim of retailers is to make the consumer ‘add to cart.’ We can monitor customers’ behavior throughout their journey by following eCommerce merchandising strategies, which leads customers to make online purchases.
Today, eCommerce stores are much in operation, which shows in-store shopping is still the first choice for customers. So, do you know why it’s so? Maybe it’s because today, most people like to buy products after sensing them in real life, touching them, and feeling them. Or, perhaps they don’t like paying high shipping charges. As per a record, about 63% of shoppers abandon their carts if they find higher shipping costs. To combat such issues, eCommerce brands have started offering free shipping and returns.
Difference Between Traditional Merchandising and eCommerce Merchandising
The online selling space is limited as compared to the traditional stores. But, on the other hand, the seller doesn’t need to show the same goods to everyone who comes to his store. With no need to reach the store in person, eCommerce merchandising ensures that the seller showcases the goods related, in the best order, and exhibited most competitively.
However, there are differences between traditional merchandising and eCommerce merchandising; let’s check out a few.
Store Layout
Traditional: Brands create a familiar feeling which makes the customers recognize themselves. This way, the repeated customers will feel at home every time they visit the store and easily find what they want.
eCommerce: Online stores arrive with no physical boundaries of buildings, and also eCommerce retailers are free to design their website as per their choice keeping customers in mind.
Product Grouping
Traditional: The seller can put together all the items in a physical store in the same display. Also, he can add signs, which explain the deals.
eCommerce: On the website, the seller can use links to put together individual product pages. It is a perfect idea to have email recommendations or other notification tools that ensure that the customer knows about the related grouping deal.
Branding
Traditional: Traditional retailers use various things to represent their brand, like paint colors, lighting, and music. Such things change the customers’ feelings while they are shopping in-store.
eCommerce: We can’t experience the same as we can in-store. For online retailers, fonts and colors play a vital role as these are the only ways to represent their brand and engage more customers.
Benefits Of eCommerce Merchandising
eCommerce merchandising is advantageous in many ways. Let’s check out a few benefits of eCommerce advertising.
Increase Store Conversions
eCommerce merchandising is not just to enhance the visitor experience but is also performed to increase sales. The efforts to conduct eCommerce merchandising can become zero when you use a data-driven automated solution. But, if done manually, it can become unproductive and inefficient. Your eCommerce store can be an extension of your offline store.
Precisely like the sales folks, which display your products to your customers, eCommerce merchandising may help you automate the sales processes in your online store and thereby, increase your ROI depending on data. Using analytics, you can instantly understand your shoppers’ patterns and show them what they would like to buy. It’s not like offline shopping, where we need to depend on a human. If we analyze and anticipate consumer behavior based on the store’s data, it will enhance the chances of enhanced store conversions.
By enhancing engagement at the top of the funnel, we expect a similar enhancement at the bottom of the funnel, even if we keep the bottom of the funnel unchanged. Moreover, when the visitor is present at your store and gets the best moment to mark that impression, merchandising enhances engagement on your website. As at the end of the day, the first impression stays longer.
Efficient Sales Funnel
Retailers like to spend much on Social Media, SEM, and other sources to enhance online traffic to their eStores. The target is to improve the top of the funnel, but visitors are not likely to get engaged. With no engagement, visitors may leave instantly, increasing your price of customer acquisition and lowering profitability.
So, to increase customer engagement, you may start permitting them to find something that attracts their interest and then enable them to view the product. The main target of online merchandising is to increase product views. It’s done by placing the right item in the right place on your website. It enhances the click-through from impressions on your site page to the product views, enhancing the chances of end conversions.
Lower The Bounce Rate Of First-Time Visitors
With eCommerce merchandising, you can prevent first-time users from leaving the site and switching onto your competitor’s website as they don’t find what they want. It increases your Click-Through Rate (CTR) and chances to get a higher Average Order Value (AOV). Furthermore, you can increase product discoverability as customers explore more and don’t get “bounce-off” from your website.
Best Online Merchandising store To Boost Your eCommerce Sales
1. Merch By Amazon
Amazon sells your design as their products and reaches millions of customers worldwide with no upfront costs or investment to you. To start with it, you need to upload your artwork, pick a product type and color, and append a product description. Amazon will craft a product page on Amazon, and when the customers purchase your product, it will manage production, shipping, and customer service, all at no upfront costs.
2. Spreadshop
It makes the merchandising seamless. You don’t need to waste your time on tedious work. This merchandising store covers every hassle that we face during production, payments, fulfillment, or shipping, which is also free of cost. You can use it to modify the start page of your shop to match up with your brand. The customization setting is easy and quick. So, you just need to target selling only.
3. Zazzle
It is a technology company, which is powered by people with 100+ patents assisting in rapid growth. It includes designers, customers, brands, makers, and partners connected daily through community, content, and commerce. This store permits its users to craft digital designs and to design 1000+ different physical products.
4. Printify
This merchandising store helps in crafting and selling custom products. It’s completely free to use, has crafted 300+ high-quality products, and is considered the most prominent global print network. Printify provides some of the lowest prices in the industry and effortlessly handles the peak holiday seasons with its vast network of automatic routing functionality and partners.
5. Teespring
It’s a print-on-demand service, which has attained its profitability by making its product better. It comes with built-in marketing and multi-channel sales. The host of integrations offer creators and influencers more ways that help in monetizing their social media accounts.
6. Printful
This merchandising store assists in creating and selling custom products online. You only have to connect your online store to Printful and add your products. Next, the customer will explore your store and buy your products. Printful takes care of your order and completes the fulfillment process. In the end, the customer receives his order.
7. CafePress
A company that performs with designers to craft millions of designs present in this world on hundreds of different products. Its website holds varied, appealing designs that the users can put on various products. The designs come from fan portals, shopkeepers, and licensed content.
eCommerce Merchandising Strategies Used In eCommerce Stores
Let’s check some of the strategies that you may follow in your eCommerce stores.
Store Layout
Most of the time, while talking about eCommerce website layout, we get confused between two objectives: aesthetic and conversion. A site that converts is not necessarily appealing in look. On the other side, a site that looks attractive does not essentially close the deals.
So, while deciding on an optimum layout for your store, you need to consider a few factors below.
Products Organized Categories
You should design your site that even a kid can navigate and pick the correct item he wants to buy. For that, you need to showcase the most basic categorization. You should not make your customers switch to your competitors’ websites. So, keep everything simple and logically straight so that they may reach the item they want to buy.
Mega Menus
The mega menu is a two-dimensional, expandable menu. Such menus are highly effective if your store has a lengthy list of menus and subpages. With a mega menu, the visitor wouldn’t have to scroll as he may see all the major options at one time. It can be vertical or horizontal, depending on your website design and your industry. Such menus offer an enhanced user experience, provide a better-indexed website for eCommerce SEO, and much more.
Branding
eCommerce branding is about your logo, brand name, catchy tagline, and how people talk and perceive your business and its personality. It’s the first impression that is left on visitors.
Attractive Logo Design
You should take care of your logo design as a logo leaves a substantial impact on your visitors and customers. If they remember your logo, they will also remember your brand. So, you should make your brand logo recognizable. Moreover, be sure that it is classy, unique, has a readable font, etc.
Brand Color Theme
The color theme you choose should hold 3-5 hues and evoke emotional responses. Every color reveals a different meaning. That’s why you should select every color wisely to let your brand be friendly.
Attractive Images
You need to be consistent when it comes to product images. You may choose the white background for the pictures, or varied ones also. Besides, you can pick a whole scene as a background for your product images.
About Us Pages with The Brand Story
Apart from your story, the About Us page will showcase what you can do for your potential consumers and why you should do it. That’s why you should ensure that you offer some background on your products and team. Moreover, you need to emphasize the core values that may showcase that your company is unique.
Product Grouping & Categorization
You need to place and organize your products into their respective categories. It may sound simple, like just choosing the correct department for a product. Although, this process is complex when there are a plethora of products.
Specific Product Pages
This page tells the customers about the specific item they have clicked. It includes the description of the product, its measurements, ingredients, materials, installation instruction, and every relevant detail. It helps the consumers so that they can emerge with a buying decision.
Personalized Product Recommendations For Repeat Visitors
Such recommendations offer online shoppers the easiest and quickest way to view all the related items as per their needs and desire. It motivates “just browsing” visitors to buy something, assists “lost” customers with the product they want, and encourages “big” online shoppers to add more items to their cart.
Also Read: eCommerce Website Development Guide
Key Attributes & Elements In An eCommerce Merchandising Store
There are infinite tools, techniques, and approaches you can use for your eCommerce store development. Let’s check out a few that can make your store a success.
Mobile-Friendly Website or App
Be it’s a website or mobile app, it should be mobile-friendly. It means it should perform well in the same way across browsers or mobile. So, everything should be stable on both mobile devices and computers.
Easy Navigation To Discover Products Easily
Robust site navigation eases visitors to emerge with the information immediately that magnetizes them. So, be sure that the navigation should be consistent and divide the categories. Besides, remember to make every navigation element clickable links and use suitable navigation titles. Moreover, be sure that every clickable image holds ALT text.
Personalized Recommendations (via mail, push notifications, recommended products)
It’s an integral part of personalized strategies. These are used to offer a personalized shopping experience to the customers. Customers witness various products dynamically based on their attributes, browsing behavior, etc.
Excellent Product Descriptions
It’s one of the essential aspects of online shopping when it comes to conversion. So, while writing product descriptions, you should know your target audience, target product benefits, tell the entire story about the product, maintain a natural tone and language, and use powerful words that sell.
Live Chat Support
It’s a perfect way to help your customers through instant messaging platforms. It helps in strengthening customer experience, resolving several issues at a time, etc.
Easily Accessible User Reviews and Ratings
You should allow customers to access reviews and ratings easily. It helps them in making buying decisions. Moreover, you should also permit them to share their feedback, as this will help both you and your customers.
Wrapping Up
So, eCommerce merchandising is emerging every year. New merchandising techniques and strategies are also evolving to attract customers and motivate them to make purchases.
A point to note here is eCommerce merchandising is incredibly visual. It appears the same on every device. So, while creating a new app or website, everything should be the same for both as customers prefer consistency.
So, now it’s your turn to move ahead and implement the latest and advanced features to enhance your business process and make your brand stand uniquely in the crowd.
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