Online retail merchandising

You can beat your competition quite easily if you know the tactics of niche product optimization with respect to the e-commerce space

Niche marketing is not a new concept. Marketers, as well as product manufacturers, have leveraged the power of niche audiences to gain better control over their sales. It’s no surprise then that there is cutthroat competition in the e-commerce space and marketers are finding it hard to attract new customers. This is happening because people have become more informed than before. Consumers can now compare and research the product before they buy it easy than ever. [si_guide_block id="20212" title="Download our Premium Resource – E-commerce success mapping" description="This template introduces an analytical approach which we think is particularly useful for improving results from e-commerce site marketing but can be applied to other types of sites and online marketing activities also."/] As an e-commerce store owner or a marketer, you are constantly looking for new ways…

Chart of the Day: Which are the most popular merchandising techniques used by online retailers?

Best practices for creating effective user experiences for Ecommerce sites are often discussed along with how to improve experiences through conversion rate optimization. However, it's less common for retail merchandising techniques to be discussed. To help retailers learn best practices, we've created a new online merchandising guide by retail Expert Mark Hall which is available to Business members. To highlight some of the merchandising techniques available this research reviews techniques used based on a review of the Ecommerce sites of some of the 50 top global Ecommerce brands. The results suggest a variation in merchandising adoption with some techniques such as top sellers, trending now and top-rated products having a surprisingly low adoption. This in turn, suggests, the challenges of including merchandising features when retail brands are looking to simplify experiences on mobile devices…

Sales guru Jim Rohn aptly said:

‘Success is neither magical nor mysterious; it’s the natural consequence of consistently applying the fundamentals.’

I agree wholeheartedly. In order to sell better online you need to know the fundamentals, or essentials, of persuasive selling. These same principles apply whether you’re selling face-to-face or on a website. Only by doing so will you achieve your overarching merchandising goals: more add-to-carts and conversions, triggered by higher click-throughs on your website’s sales pages. In this post I cover essential selling practices. I discuss best practices and optimisation techniques separately.

Start with the essentials

For us humans, the essentials are food, water and rest. For online merchandising, selling essentials are more emotion-based, and include: Understanding your prospects needs and desires Earning the trust of your visitors Using persuasive selling tactics Tailoring your pitch to your shopper’s stage Creating a Product Finder tool Offering proactive customer support

Understanding your prospects

Here’s another saying…

5 steps to getting started with merchandising for Online Trading

In the broadest sense, merchandising is defined as 'the activity of promoting the sale of goods'. Whether this is in a store, over the phone or online the principle is the same – 'Sell more stuff (Profitably)'; the differences come in the techniques employed to do this. A traditional retail store will use gondala end displays, clip-strip cross-sells and sales assistants to maximise revenues, but without the advantage of face-to-face sales influence how can we sell online?

[si_guide_block id="74974" title="Download Expert Member resource – Online Retail Merchandising guide" description="This guide examines all aspects of the buyer journey and gives great tips along the way to improve your customer's experience and make them more likely to buy. Via detailed examples of sites including JohnLewis.com, B&Q, Asos and more, in both desktop and mobile views, the guide lets you learn from market leaders…

Data shows uplift retailers in the UK and worldwide can expect from the key e-commerce dates this month

For retailers, the festive season effectively starts with Black Friday on 27th November 2015 and Cyber Monday three days later. This year some experts are predicting that UK sales could top the one billion pound mark. To understand what we should expect this year let’s take a look at how things panned out in 2014. The data in the charts below is compiled by Fresh Relevance and the predicted uplift is based on billions of page views across retail websites in previous years (approx. 50% in the UK and 50% worldwide). The impact of the two day shopping bonanza starts one week ahead of Black Friday as traffic falls back slightly, suggesting that consumers are delaying purchases in the anticipation of lower prices. Then the day before a 25% increase in traffic as shoppers’ scope…

How to use personalised product recommendations to increase Ecommerce sales

The importance of effective product recommendations cannot be ignored. When done correctly they can heavily contribute to the success of a website, both by increasing the quantity and the size of orders being placed. Studies of personalisation have revealed that, when recommendations are made intelligently, those products being recommended can enjoy conversion rates over 900% higher than sitewide averages. Amazon have famously leveraged this technique to attract a huge customer base and vast revenues - a look at their homepage will reveal a site committed to personalising its shopping experience around the needs of each and every individual customer. Today, the importance of website personalisation as a method for boosting conversion rates is recognised by most digital professionals. An Econsultancy report recently named website personalisation as 2014's top digital priority by…

10 last minute Christmas retail conversion hacks

Christmas is days away, but there may still be options to drive your your conversions and revenue per visit higher. Despite development lock-downs and short timescales, there’s still time for these types last-minute conversion hacks to give the gift of a higher conversion rate to your marketing team. Here are 10 I've seen used.

1.  Promote any gift wrapping or customisation options

Customers who are buying gifts will appreciate options like gift wrapping or personalised messages since it saves them time and money. Promoting these options on product pages and at the checkout can give a quick revenue boost – plus it gives customers an extra reason to buy from you. Selfridges offer a beautiful gift-wrapping option at checkout which includes their signature box:

However,…

7 examples of online merchandising

Online merchandising is an ever-changing task and the following examples highlight some current methods but are by no means exhaustive. Central to most of them is the idea of giving the customer the opportunity to choose the direction their visit will take; whether that might be choosing a trend, narrowing down the products they see or choosing their own add-on products. Or in other words: Personalisation. Using browsing history, trend data or customer data, these retailers are able to deliver a different experience for different user groups or indeed users. With so many different options available it would be easy to be overwhelmed; so here are 7 examples from great ecommerce websites of online merchandising execution.

1. Collection pages - example from Dunelm

A common problem faced by lots of retailers selling online is how to sell multiple products from the same range. This is especially true for …