Ecommerce Merchandising: What It Is and How to Use It

Ecommerce merchandising is fundamental to making your products stand out in your online store and catching your target audience's attention to buy them. It's strongly connected to how you design the layout of your website pages and showcase the items you are selling. 

The way the products are displayed in your online store can impact significantly the number of conversions from website visitors to clients. It can influence user experience, and compel them to buy, as you organize the page items strategically.  

What Is Ecommerce Merchandising?#

Ecommerce merchandising englobes every action related to how products are presented in online stores to promote and sell them. It includes visual displays, product categorization, personalized recommendations, how the product photos are positioned on each page, the and curation of the products that will be on the main pages, for example. 

When you access an online store home page, you may have noticed that the layout puts some categories and products in a prominent position to drive customer attention. This often includes a previous analysis that considers what the target audience is most interested in.

Source: Amazon

Ecommerce merchandising is also about how the product page is designed, for example, with minimal details that could drive away the attention from the product photos, and description. Every element is considered to achieve the main goal, which is selling the products. 

How to display product images and information is a primary consent in ecommerce merchandising. So, the customer can easily discover all the benefits a product has to offer, and how it can solve their demands.

5 Ecommerce Merchandising Key Elements#

1. Strong Brand Identity#

Your brand identity must represent your company values and mission, and be present in every detail of your website. Create brand guidelines to define how to design each website page and display the products according to the visual elements that represent your company.

This helps to make your brand memorable, so customers will associate it with the type of products you sell.

2. High-Quality Product Photos and Videos#

Providing high-quality photos and videos of your products is very important to increase conversion rates, and sell more. Your customers must be able to see and analyze every detail of your products, therefore images that show them as close as possible to reality are indispensable. 

They should also be attractive, to convince the customer to click on them to learn more about the products.

3. UX Design#

UX design is about designing pages that prioritize user experience, so people with navigate through your website smoothly without having any problems. You may ask yourself how this is related to online merchandising, and the answer is: in how you choose to place the product photos, descriptions, and other details such as the "view more"  or "buy" button, 

Every page layout in your website needs to be constructed considering how to provide the best user experience, so customers can easily find what they are looking for. The design must instigate the desire to keep browsing through the website and facilitate the purchasing process as well. 

4. Curation#

Another important part of online merchandising is knowing how to organize the products you sell in the proper categories. You can use different criteria to group them such as collection, function, and material.

For example, an online clothing store can categorize products by type, like: shirts, t-shirts, dresses, pants, skirts, accessories, summer/spring collection, and winter/fall collection. The way you group the items impacts the path people will take when browsing through your websites. It's important to consider what you want to prioritize, and how to to drive their attention. 

You can also enable search by filters, so the customers can curate the products they want to see. For example, they can search for white, silk shirts, or velvet dresses. 

5. Personalized Product Recommendations#

Another great asset for ecommerce merchandising is data analytics tools that allow you to analyze customer behavior, and trigger product recommendations based on their pages and products seen on your website. 

This way when someone accesses your website for a second time, the products displayed will be aligned with their interests, which increases the chances of closing sales. 

6 Best Ecommerce Merchandising Strategies#

The home page, category pages, and product pages are the main focus when it comes to where you should start implementing ecommerce merchandising strategies. When we compare an online store with a physical one, the home page would be the display window.

The category pages are the store sectors, and the product page is where the product is placed in a physical store. You will need to think of ecommerce merchandising strategies to implement in each one of your website sections.

1. Create a Mobile Friendly Interface#

According to Statista, mobile devices represent 70% of retail traffic site globally. This means that your ecommerce website must provide an excellent user experience regardless of accessed on a desktop or mobile device. Otherwise, you may lose lots of sales opportunities. 

2. Provide Personalized Recommendations#

Offering personalized experiences is one of the main trends when it comes to user experience. Website users and customers value content that is made to fit their needs and interests, and this includes online merchandising. 

You increase the chances of closing sales when people access your website and see products that are related to their interests. Therefore, the use of data analytics tools is essential because they will help you to detect user behavior and identify what products they are more likely to buy. 

3. Add Social Proof#

Customer reviews and ratings are types of social proofs, which are a valuable tool for online merchandising because they add credibility to your products and brand. As they come from clients, people are more prompt to believe in what is written about your products and may be convinced to purchase because of that. 

Invite customers to leave a product review by sending a post-purchase e-mail asking if they are satisfied with the purchase. You can even offer a special gift, such as a coupon discount or free shipping, to encourage them to give their feedback. 

4. Optimize Site Search#

Enable optimized site search on your ecommerce site, this way customers will be able to group products as they want and have more autonomy on how they choose to navigate through the pages. It improves user experience and helps them quickly find the products they want. 

5. Publish Images and Videos in High-Resolution#

Different than the experience in a physical store where customers can try, touch, and analyze the product details in person, when someone buys online they rely on the images, product description, and reviews to decide if the purchase is worth it or not. 

Therefore, it's essential to invest in taking high-resolution product photos, and videos. The photos and videos must be made with the product in a neutral background, without other items that will drive attention from the merchandise. Pay extra attention to the lighting, and show the product from different angles. 

6. Understand Customer Behavior#

Get to know your target audience, and analyze the data gathered from your website traffic to identify what is attractive to your customers. Try to understand what are their demands, and how you can create e-commerce merchandise to highlight how your product can help to solve their issues. This way you can create a website that is appealing to them, and enhance your results.

Start Implementing Ecommerce Merchandising Techniques#

Now that you have learned what ecommerce merchandising is, and how you can implement it, what about start testing different ways to display your products in our online store? Keep track of the key performance indicators to analyze what strategies work best for your target audience, and adapt your website to suit your target audience's needs.