Retail merchandising is an important topic brick-and-mortar stores, especially for grocery stores. In today’s competitive world, managing a grocery store successfully is a challenge that runs through every retailer's mind. The key to boosting sales is to provide shoppers with an experience they will remember and talk about. Having strong in-store visuals with the help of planograms can result in sending 90% of the information to the brain, which impacts the customer's buying decisions.??
A planogram is an important visual merchandising tool for grocery stores, as it helps optimize the store layout to drive sales and improve the customer shopping experience. This helps retailers categorize products in an intuitive and easy-to-navigate way so that customers can find what they need, which increases the likelihood of purchase. Following are some planogram factors to consider when merchandising a grocery store category:?
- Understand customer behavior & market trends: The first factor is to understand how customer behaves in your store. The target audience of the store can influence product mix, presentation, and pricing. Age, income, and lifestyle preferences are some of the demographics that should be considered when determining which categories to prioritize and how to merchandise them. You can look at the past sales data to get an idea of their tastes, preferences, and market demands. For instance, if your target customers are health conscious, place organic or gluten-free products on eye-level shelves. This will help create a store layout that is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and logical for customers. Keeping an eye on current market trends in the grocery industry can help identify emerging categories and products that may be worth investing in. For instance, plant-based foods and organic products are currently trending in many markets.
- Analyze category roles & performance:?The second factor to consider is the performance of categories. While creating planograms for grocery stores, it is important to allocate space, position, location, size, visibility, and profitability to each category. Retailers can analyze sales data to understand top-selling products and their placement on shelves within a category. You can include season-wise product categories that align with customer expectations and store goals to boost sales. For example, during the summer, shoppers may be more interested in buying beverages, snacks, and barbecue-related products.?
- Plan product assortment: Offering the exact items your shoppers needs can make you sell most of your stock regularly and reduce the losses that come with dead stock. Imagine how satisfied your customers will be when they experience the ease of finding the right product. According to reports, two-thirds of shoppers expect stores to understand their needs and expectations, and the best way to do so is to provide them with the right products at the right time. Placing complementary products can help shoppers get everything they need from their shopping basket. For example, grouping products such as lettuce, cucumber, or olives to make a salad can result in impulse buying.?
Nexgen POG is a robust and user-friendly cloud-based visual merchandising tool. It is designed for quick and efficient planogramming with minimal effort. Planograms in retail can be designed by easily dragging and dropping the products. The multi-device compatibility feature of POG allows you to obtain, share and edit planogram on any device, including your phone. It helps in designing store-specific planograms for increased product visibility and sales.?
