Knowing the fundamentals of product placement in retail stores is a lot different than developing a smart merchandising strategy for individual and unique stores. True sales optimization requires creative leaps, visible sales data, and a commitment to ongoing evolution in your product merchandising. Today, sustained success requires more than intuition and pluck. Sustained success requires product placement software that can inform your retail store plan, planogram design, category management, and assortment planning. Get this type of software resource with Scorpion Planogram.
The Basics of Product Placement in Retail Stores
Those with experience in retail will recognize these principles and truisms. Whether setting up your store for the first time or in the very early stages of redesigning your retail space, it never hurts to review these fundamentals in the context of your store planning.
- Eye level is buy level. Based on the average person’s height, perfect eye level is about 5 feet with about a foot leeway in either direction. This is where the vast majority of your top sellers will be in product placement. Above 6 feet is “reach” or “stretch” level. There is both a merchandising and safety component that come into play. Products will receive less attention on these shelves, but heavy objects with the potential to hurt someone should also be avoided. Under 4 feet is “stoop” or “bend” level. This is better for items marketed to children, but also for larger, heavier items. In addition to safety, larger items are easier to see and make for more aesthetically pleasing planogram design.
- Less is more. it’s easy to think, at first, that you want to pack as many products in front of customers as possible. There is something to increasing product exposure, but maximizing the sheer volume of products consistently proves to be the wrong approach. Especially when it comes to the store entryway or “decompression zone,” less is more. By presenting an open and pleasing floor plan, the customer’s mood is lifted and put in a frame of mind more conducive to buying.
- Focus on the power wall. After this decompression zone, most every shopper will turn right and face what merchandisers call the power wall. This area serves a dual role to showcase top-performing products but also draw the shopper into the rest of the store. It’s essential for modern-day retailers to have software that can measure the product sales of this immediate area as well as its effect on sales throughout the entire store.
- Use buildups for small product groupings. Sometimes known as risers, arranging smaller products with similar shapes and forms can be a great way to create compelling multi-level product displays. Cosmetics and You can subtly impress customers with your visual merchandising skills, while also setting up a product assortment for effective category management. Strategic placement, size, and scale of these risers is essential for space optimization and whole store retail planning.
How Product Placement Software Helps Move Beyond the Fundamentals
As important as it is to know the fundamentals, overly rigid adherence to these principles can create blind spots that keep you from optimizing product placement in retail stores. Take visually compelling buildups and product groupings, for example. While this can help increase sales in specific segments, in some cases these groupings can unduly distract shopper’s attention and detract from sales in surrounding areas of the store, depressing overall sales. With the right software and merchandising strategy, retailers can identify these hidden traps and missed opportunities more efficiently.
Get Scorpion Planogram Software
Any retail store can benefit from our planogram software. Planogram design and automation offer foundational tools for efficiently managing your in-store product placement. 3D planograms are just the tool you need for designing and measuring the effectiveness of featured displays and product buildups. Category Insights offer data metrics for deeper-level sales analysis. You can also take advantage of our consultancy services to get personalized tips for space optimization and product placement in your retail stores.
If you’re interested in planogram samples with visual representations of our product placement software features, we encourage you to check out our Gallery.
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