Experience Design in Merchandising
As a Merchandiser, I was responsible for unifying the branding strategies with the needs of my customer. I was regularly conducting qualitative and quantitative research to gauge where conversion could be maximized, heat mapping the space to understand traffic flow, analyzing competitors in market research and ultimately testing layout changes to know what to prioritize.
Merchandising is the true non verbal selling tactic that is most effective in commerce, eliminating any friction in an experience as well as empathizing and anticipating customer's needs. It's that same empathy for the customer that has made UX such a natural progression in my career, and the following are the steps I took through each of the projects I oversaw as a Visual Merchandising Manager.
Research
What product will we have enough of to meet the demand we generate?
Merchandise planning allowed me to properly plan the execution of the project by anticipating which receipts were expected and prioritizing accordingly.
With the expected SKUs for the various departments identified, I could communicate project tasks to Department Managers and base timelines off expected work load.
Where can we place this product to maximize exposure?
Heat Mapping
Understand the steps the visitor was more frequently taking was the first step in knowing how to prioritize new receipts and promotional assets. I did this through data analysis and determined hot spots, where in turn I would place strategic promotions, top sellers and higher price pointed items to get maximum exposure.
Bubble Mapping
Since this data didn't frequently change, I developed a seasonal bubble map indicating the top locations on the floor to indicate where the priority areas were to share with the team. This allowed for them to understand shop placement and focus sales energy and maintenance according to traffic patterns. It is with this map that shop placement could be determined based on our weekly Merchandise Planning.
What are our visitors saying?
Medallia Survey
We used an internal survey that allowed customers to receive a coupon for next use to indicate what they tend to be looking for when visiting our store. This allowed us to determine the prominency of different product stories based on demand. With the information gathered for this season, being Back to School, we curated a Basics Shop in Section A to reflect the results of the poll.
Social Media Tracking
To determine the OMNI channel strategy, we looked at the engagement and reach for posts that were classed in the legend to the left. We found that while our specific customer was looking primarily for basics, they were engaging mostly with content based on Trend pieces. With this in mind, I placed a Trend capsule adjacent to the Basics shop in Section A, not only allowing that OMNI customer to easily find what they saw online but also introduce a mix and match element to the floor to increase UPT.
What are our strongest messages?
Reviewing what SKUs we were expecting helped me carve out the type of Merchandising fixtures would be required. Pants are a primary item in this shipment so I could prep pant fixtures for this shop in advance.
In-Store Execution
Aligning shop messaging with OMNI channels proved to be beneficial based on my research, so Back to School marketing with an emphasis on Denim and book bags drove KPIs for this project.
Project Results
Upon project completion, I would then reflect on KPIs and business analysis to determine what areas were underperforming. I would reassess those areas with a new round of qualitative and quantitative research, inventory assessment and design thinking to eliminate any pain points that may be contributing.
In this particular project, the SKUs we were looking to increase saw successful comps over the week prior to execution.
