Product Merchandising Management

Karen Mendoza & Steve Oakes

Diving into Product Merchandising Management

This article provides insights and advice that spans the lifecycle of product merchandising. From launch to recalls to managing everything in between, retailers, merchandisers and product companies can all benefit from building their product merchandising mastery.

Product Merchandising Management – The Powerhouse Behind Sales

Advertising might get award-winning TV shows like ‘Mad Men’, but at the core any successful consumer brand company, one will always find well-oiled product merchandising management organisation. It's the silent hero that powers sales. From communicating with field staff to training to task management to product displays, end-caps and beyond, execution is 9/10ths of the sale. 

Keeping merchandising efforts on track won't stop when the product is on the shelf. It begins at product launch and doesn’t stop until the product is retired. It also includes seasonal merchandising, on-going inventory management, resets, marketing and more.

Product merchandising management also connects vision, employees and execution into one. Getting products into customer hands, however, means tracking time, execution, employees and merchandise on the floor – and in the back room.

Who does this affect? Retailers, consumer packaged goods companies, consumer brands and third-party merchandising companies and remote workers as well as in-store merchandising employees.

Retail and Merchandising Tips to Live By

Happiness is the emotion most likely to encourage shoppers to make a purchase.

Evoke happiness with your retail merchandising using warm colours, photos of people or animals. Learn more in our blog on emotion in retail product merchandising to expand on these emotional triggers.

Pay close attention to target customer data when planning seasonal merchandising.

In Natural Insight’s yearly holiday shopping survey, for example, we report insights into anticipated age, gender, purchase timing and dive into exactly what makes them tick. During one of the most competitive retail moments of the year, make your product shine with merchandising that’s laser-focused on your shoppers' wants and needs.

Design social-friendly retail product merchandising.

Brand loyalty, product exposure and a bursting customer base drive the retail product sales that merchandisers promise. Social media offers up a cornucopia of ways to expand them all. Stay on top of trends, the technology that customers are running to and the values that drive them to buy – or not buy – your product.

Exploit new venues for your products.

Get your products in new places. One innovator we’ve spotted? A company that puts retail inside rideshare services and ads for those products on their phone when they purchase. On-the-go snacks in the car and ads that pop into the user’s phone keeps them buying – even when they’re zooming past storefronts and quick-stop locales.

For product launches, promotions and other important moments, go experiential.

Lisa’s kids just got out of school for the summer. Janet and Mark celebrate each hard week at work with a weekly Friday outing.

Meet them on their feet!

Janet and Mark might have gone to see 29Rooms (and paid to see it). There, they experienced the fun and activity sponsored by brands like Dunkin’ Donuts, Shatterbox and TNT. What might they find? Selfie-friendly, targeted funhouse rooms, a mock game show, and surrealist art that is on-brand and audience-centric (and not just pumping the merch). Lisa’s kids, however, were positively dying to go to the Coca Cola/FIFA augmented reality event near the local transit station. There, the kids lined up to show off their footwork for their favourite sports star and appeared right next to him, while Lisa signed them up for a chance to attend the World Cup. Do you suppose there was Coke on hand? One thing was certainly in the kids’ hands: a brand-new copy of the latest FIFA game. 

Developing a Successful Product Launch Plan

Coordinate with Suppliers, Stock Rooms and Retailers and Staff

This step of the product launch means ensuring communication between the folks on the floor who make the displays light up and everyone involved with stocking, supply chains and distribution. Are products landing at the right retailer? Do retailers and merchandisers have a way to prove field execution and communicate needs? 

Align and Prepare Displays, Advertising and Brand Ambassadors

A unified brand means having a clear and polished brand framework in place. From there, messaging is born. And from that messaging comes the talking points for your brand ambassadors, the punchy and engaging advertisements and The Bottom Line: Products need to be on shelves. Messaging needs to be unified. Ads need to be flying and product launch exposure at a maximum.  Carefully aligning planning and objectives to the right execution tactics is critical.  And using the right collaboration tool might make the difference between a successful and failed launch.

Facilitating a Seamless Product Reset

Product resets can seem daunting. Heck, they are daunting. The simplest way to approach them is by staging each part of the reset process. Start by breaking down the process into parts.

Merchandise Unloading and Unpacking 

• Keep close track of shipping dates and employee staffing for big unpacking and unloading pushes. Ensure employees are on-site – even remotely – with a real-time mobile check-in and check-out program. Natural Insight provides that as well as anti-time theft verification tools backed by GPS tagging.

• Ensure appropriate stocking area shelving is ready to go – you don’t want to end up throwing pallets onto the floor and clogging already cramped spaces.

• Clear discontinued merchandise from shelves and secure for processing.
  

Product Display Setups

• Gather or acquire the proper shelving, display and assembly/disassembly tools.

• Create and distribute planograms. Modern merchandising execution platforms make retail product launches and resets quicker. How? They distribute mobile-friendly planograms, specific steps with real-time checkoff procedures and non-gameable verification photography.

• Deploy the merchandisers!

Pricing and Signage Setups

• Now that product is on the shelf and displays are loaded, signage, shelf-hanger displays and those beautiful, dangling impulse buys can be put in place without hindering shelf stocking.

These merchandising tips can help to improve the overall attractiveness of the retail store and, in turn, will boost the store’s sales and general customer experience. These tips and techniques should be deployed by retail merchandisers for efficient growth within the store.