Merchandising is one of the fundamentals of sales success. And, when it comes to fashion retail, there is no exception. As a retailer, you must consider how each element influences a shopper’s decision to make a purchase.

Reports show that 85% of the human brain’s information is visual. Therefore, when selling items, your method of displaying products will influence your shopper’s buying behavior. So, how can ensure that each time a person passes your store, they make a purchase? The best way to achieve this is with visual merchandising planograms.

How Planograms Help in Fashion Visual Merchandising?

Planograms are visual merchandising tools, that help retailers in designing and executing product displays to drive shopper’s attention and significantly increase sales. It involves strategic planning, laying out your store and categorizing products. Doing this the right way will effectively capture the attention of shoppers. This will also determine your customer’s first impression when they see or explore your store. Let us discuss how planogram in retail applies to fashion retailers and how it differs from other retailers by looking at the following aspects:

1. The decompression zone: It is the area located at the front of the store, used to attract shoppers and provide them with space to familiarize themselves with your store. The more comfortable a shopper feels inside your store, the longer they will stay. In fashion retailing, the decompression zone must be welcoming and provide enough space for customers to navigate easily throughout the store. When a customer visits a grocery store routinely with the intention of buying. These retailers have the benefit that they already have the shopper inside their store. But fashion shopping is not a routine activity, and therefore retailers are dependent on an aesthetically pleasing decompression zone to motivate shoppers to enter the store. With the constant changes in the fashion industry, customers will look forward to seeing the newest or trendiest items on store displays. To keep your customers interested, change your displays regularly, and use fixtures such as mannequins, or clothing rails of different heights to drive sales.

2. Customer path in your store: Creating a customer path in your store guides your customer in exploring various merchandise. Considering consumer decisions while creating your customer path will help you group and place merchandise. For example, creating a section for casual wear and then grouping by brand within this category. Placing your sale items and basic fashion items towards the back of the store makes a customer walk past through other aisles before reaching the destination. This increases the chances of impulse buying and the customer ends up staying in your store for longer. Today, fashion lead times are as short as two to three weeks, which means new stock arrives often. Therefore, the store layout and placement of merchandise must be updated regularly using a planogram, to keep up with the short lead times. You can place new items in the front of the store or on window displays so that they are more exposed to people who walk past.

3. Apply merchandising strategies: Unlike other stores, a fashion store must appeal aesthetically to the customer by displaying items strategically. Implementing certain merchandising strategies is key to boosting sales.

• Create visual balance: Fashion merchandising considers the size and nature of items as well as the display fixture. Creating enticing displays by placing them around different heights, colors, and styles together can drive a shopper’s attention. For example, when creating a display wall, place darker colors towards the bottom and lighter colors towards the top to create visual balance.
• Cross-merchandise items: This visual merchandising strategy is very beneficial to boost sales when done the right way. It involves placing complementary items next to each other, like shoes next to bags or matching accessories next to clothing. By doing this, shoppers can see how an item can be worn and are they will be more inclined to make impulse purchases.
• Consider seasonality: Create your displays based on the current trends and seasons. If it is winter, customers are more likely to buy jackets or sweaters than a swimsuit. It is important to keep this in mind when creating product displays.

4. Create a multisensory experience Your shoppers are more likely to remember your store based on the sensory experiences they felt. Consider the following senses, which can drive your store’s sales.

• Sight: Your customers will have the best memory of what they see in your store, which makes sight one of the most important factors to consider when merchandising items. You can place items at eye level or tell a story with your displays to aesthetically please your customers and boost sales.
• Sound: This sense can also stimulate your sales. Playing music in your store can make your shopper spend more time in your store. People experience a shorter wait time when they hear music that they like, they might even linger around a bit longer to finish listening to a song playing in-store.
• Smell: Scent is linked to emotion and memory and can create an impression in the shopper’s mind in spending time in your store. For example, if you have a women’s clothing store, you can use a floral scent, which creates a feminine feeling when shopping. The right smell can subconsciously lead your shoppers to make a purchase and provide a pleasant shopping experience.
• Touch: When it comes to fashion, touch is an important factor in your store's success. Your customer would like to feel the fabric, and this is one of the main reasons why most shoppers prefer visiting physical stores over online shopping.

5. Enticing displays: Placing enticing product displays can help you drive sales and draw the customer’s attention. So, the following are some planogram display ideas you can try in your fashion merchandising.

• Interactive displays: One of the best ways to engage shoppers who might pass by your product is through interactive displays. This is vital in fashion merchandising because shoppers are looking for an idea of what your product looks and feels like before they purchase it. To ensure this, you can place interactive displays to visualize your items in different ways. You can use mannequins or body forms to create interactive displays to boost sales.
• Window displays: Window displays help your store create a first impression among shoppers when they pass through your store. It also provides you with the opportunity to promote your new products or offers and special sales of your items. You can add creative color themes and lighting to create the right ambiance in your window display to entice customers.
• Checkout displays: Most retailers do not consider the checkout counters as a powerful tool for implementing fashion merchandising. When you want your shoppers to make impulse purchases, you can place cross-merchandise items on checkout displays. For example, you can place accessories such as wallets, belts, earrings, or watches to drive impulse sales.

Overview of Nexgen POG

Nexgen POG is a robust and user-friendly cloud-based visual merchandising tool. It is designed for quick and efficient planogramming with minimal effort. Planogram 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.

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