REDEFINING VISUAL MERCHANDISING WITH NEW-AGE CONCEPTS

Revolutionizing modern retail, the practice of eclectic Visual Merchandising remains crucial in ensuring exceptional in-store shopping and customer experience. Perceived as a craft of profound ideation and creativity, the concept of Retail Merchandising since ages has evolved into a sophisticated technique to drive sales, evoke emotions and boost retention. Developed from a simple idea of strategic demonstration of products in the late 80s, the practice has transformed into an advanced creative domain and is the ultimate key to conceptualisation and building an out-of-the-box store design. 

In the present post-pandemic era, where in-store shopping continues to gain momentum, providing retailers and brands with great opportunities to explore advanced concepts and techniques to create not just delightful in-store experiences but incredible journeys, the need for rigorous deliberations and close attention to sophisticated concepts in line with the emerging trends to carve futuristic models would be the right way forward. 

Given the changing perceptions and beliefs of modern-age consumers, the awe-inspiring experiential and innovative store formats truly happens to be the feast for the eyes as repeat visits and increased in-store engagement or exploration are believed to be the major drivers for in-store sales. As new shoppers are believed to be highly conscious about making the right choices, the right way, absolute concentration on redefining strategies and leveraging new technologies is highly imperative to elevate customer experience up-a-notch. 

Being precise with AI-driven solutions

With potential to transform the retail industry, Artificial Intelligence empowers retailers to drive business growth, optimize operational efficiency, and enhance the overall customer experience. Considered to be a landmark event, the arrival of AI has compelled developers to build new solutions that facilitates precise decision-making and execution for the enhancement of operational efficiency. For instance, the Upsell and Cross-Sell Merchandising Editor introduced by Fast Simon, an independent US-based corporation, provides merchandisers with advanced control over AI-generated product recommendations to propose the right suggestions to shoppers. Taking a giant leap in the use of AI for retail innovation, the editor is believed to be the most effective tool in achieving the right balance of inventory and sales and suggesting the best-related picks to shoppers.

Through AI-powered tools and technologies, retailers can gain real-time insights into customer behaviour, and identify factors, enabling them to predict future demand precisely, optimize inventory levels, and minimize costs associated with excess inventory or stock-outs. 

Retailers in today’s time are turning to AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants to provide instant customer support, resolve queries, and extend exceptional support thereby improving response times and reducing the workload on customer support teams. Being utilized to automate product tagging, create high-quality text and image content for products, assort product catalogues, and simplifying the process of products discovery, the AI-powered smart shelves and heat mapping solutions are enabling retailers to redefine store layout, stock replenishment, product placements, and queue management, enhancing the overall operational efficiency and customer experience. 

Evidently, the new-age solutions being deployed to assess the real-time data on market conditions, competitor pricing, and customer demands are helping retailers to dynamically adjust their strategies, maximize revenue, and secure increased profit margins. The solutions specially built to enable retailers to remain competitive and agile in a rapidly changing retail landscape helps drive growth, and deliver great customer satisfaction. 

Weaving stories with purpose

A good story isn’t good enough if narrated the wrong way. Going by the beliefs of modern-age shoppers, an impactful yet powerful storyline or plot reflecting the larger purpose and objectives brings immense credibility and value to a brand. As retail witness a surge in the return of customers to physical stores, brands and retailers are required to gear-up their strategies across verticals. With consumers' greater attention on rationalistic affiliations with the brands, the store format strategies and smart product featuring practices tends to be nothing short of challenge for a majority of businesses.

To establish distinct brand repute in the eyes of the customers, a great purpose envisioned with the great objective for existence seems logical to the new consumers. Primarily driven by beliefs and sentiments, the new consumers are increasingly seeking substance over noise. In pursuit of combating challenges triggered by the ongoing shifts in consumer expectations, the concept of community-led merchandising coupled with visceral storytelling elements continues to be the building blocks for socially-driven stores aligning with new consumer priorities around values. As brands in the present times undergoes aggressive reinvention, stories and narratives reflecting strong brand purpose, mission, and impact on society should be at the core of the brand development strategy. 

Building the right sustainable models

With the increased focus of new consumers on transparent functioning and operations of businesses, crafting store design emphasizing ethical practices and norms truly sets an entity apart. While businesses tap into several areas for improvisations, brands with stores stressing innovative approaches aligned with customer sentiments stands to gain the most. A detailed evaluation of ethical procurement, operational processes, industrial emissions, and use of material in the production of goods could act as a turning point for brands and is believed to be the prime agenda for businesses worldwide. To steer parallel to new realities and concerns of customers, heavy investments to restore biodiversity, water conservation, and environment protection is the need of the hour.

As businesses are required to take a stance over major critical problems affecting the world at large, prioritizing growth through responsible functioning unarguably supersedes the glory of aesthetics and décor. Not just the store design but thoughtful merchandising with a focus on promoting the right products and building awareness amongst customers could help in brand projection as a serious and responsible changemaker leading from the front. 

Prioritizing deployment of retail technologies 

As data and insights provides deeper understanding of customer patterns, cutting-edge retail solutions are contributing to the advancement of in-store merchandising. Empowering brands and retailers to gain deep actionable insights into shopping patterns and shopper movement trajectories within a store, the introduction of new retail technologies has proved to be a game-changer in curating the right mix of products. From machine learning algorithms to data analytics, retail technologies happens to be the best bet for data gathering that further helps in focused assortment optimization and smart ways for product placement.

Personalization being the biggest aspect in catering in accordance with consumer preferences, retail technologies are constantly shaping the landscape, prompting brands and businesses to deploy solutions that analyse customer data to provide highly targeted product recommendations. To address the critical complexities and channelize a series of target marketing and promotional campaigns, solutions such as Image IQ™, launched by One Door, a renowned software provider for strategic in-store retail merchandising, arms retailers with phenomenal capabilities to evaluate the quality of merchandising, attain real-time recommendations, and improve the accuracy of merchandising compliance data, resulting in increased customer engagement, loyalty, and sales growth.