Product placement is a key aspect of merchandising that can influence customers' buying decisions and store performance. In this article, you will learn how to determine the best product placement for footwear, based on some general principles and tips.
Before you decide where to place your footwear products, you need to understand who your target customer is, what their needs and preferences are, and how they shop. For example, are they looking for comfort, style, or functionality? Do they browse, compare, or impulse buy? Do they shop alone or with others? Do they prefer to try on shoes or not? These factors can help you create a customer profile and a customer journey map that will guide your product placement strategy.
Audience Research: Demographics: Understand your audience’s age, gender, lifestyle, and preferences. Are they athletes, fashion enthusiasts, or casual wearers? Behavior: Analyze their online behavior, interests, and shopping habits. What platforms do they use, Which influencers do they follow. Contextual Relevance: Retail Stores: Place footwear near relevant clothing sections. For example, sneakers near activewear or sandals near summer dresses. Online Stores: Use data-driven algorithms to recommend footwear based on users’ browsing history and previous purchases.
One of the most common and effective methods of product placement is the rule of thirds, which divides your display area into three horizontal or vertical sections. The idea is to place your most important, attractive, or profitable products in the middle section, which is the focal point of the display. The top and bottom sections can be used to showcase complementary, seasonal, or promotional products. The rule of thirds helps you create visual balance, hierarchy, and contrast in your display, and draw customers' attention to your key products.
Visual Merchandising: Eye-Level Placement: Display popular or high-margin footwear at eye level. Customers notice items placed at their natural gaze. Grouping: Create themed displays (e.g., “Summer Essentials” or “Workout Gear”) to encourage cross-selling.
Cross-merchandising is a technique that involves placing products from different categories or departments together, to create a coherent theme, story, or solution. For example, you can place footwear with clothing, accessories, or sports equipment that match or complement each other. Cross-merchandising can help you increase sales, cross-sell, and upsell, by showing customers how your products can be combined or used for different occasions or purposes.
Color is a powerful element of product placement that can affect customers' emotions, moods, and perceptions. Different colors can evoke different associations and responses, depending on the context, culture, and personal preferences of your customers. For example, red can signify passion, excitement, or urgency, while blue can suggest calmness, trust, or professionalism. You can use color psychology to create contrast, harmony, or emphasis in your product placement, and to influence customers' buying behavior.
This plays a vital role in the fashion industry. And this varies region wise. Not all colours suit all the designs. A particular style looks more attractive if made in the right colours.
Another important factor of product placement is how you use your available space, both horizontally and vertically. You want to make sure that your footwear products are visible, accessible, and organized, without being crowded, cluttered, or overwhelming. You can use different types of fixtures, such as shelves, racks, tables, or pedestals, to create different levels and angles of display. You can also use signage, lighting, or props to highlight your products and create interest and appeal.
Finally, the best way to determine the best product placement for footwear is to test and measure your results. You can use different methods and tools, such as sales data, customer feedback, observation, or heat maps, to evaluate the impact of your product placement on your store performance and customer satisfaction. You can also experiment with different variations of product placement, and compare and contrast their outcomes. By testing and measuring your product placement, you can identify what works and what doesn't, and make adjustments accordingly.
Lets understand with this example, if the target audience is young adults looking for trendy sneakers, the best placement might be at the front of the store, with a vibrant and colorful display that includes mannequins dressed in contemporary fashion that matches the sneakers. If possible, incorporate technology such as a digital screen showing the sneakers in action or a social media feed of customers wearing the product. This creates an immersive experience that aligns with the lifestyle the footwear represents.
"Same size does not fit all" While keeping visual merchandising,colour blocking, category segregations and customer base, in all of the ways you need the footwear to be available in right size options clearly visible. Size wise allocation and availability is the crucial parameter for success story of any footwear.
Cruelty free please. I really wish I won't be seeing any exotic skin, fur coat or animal leather already on the future product manufacturing. Such as the kangaroo, crocodile, python and others that uses to make accessories for human wearing. We human really need not slaughter these creatures for our own comfortment and joyfulfillment. Be kind, be compassion and start inviting yourself to join in any product research and development team who demand for cruelty free if you possesses adequate talent in making a footwear (or other human wearing product and accessories).
In the footwear market things change region wise. Like sizes and fittings, designs and colours, price range. When you plan to make products do consider the requirements and behaviour of your end consumer. Analyze the market and plan accordingly.