We live in a world that shops online. You can’t beat the convenience of being able to compare products made by several competitors while in your pajamas.That being said, how can you be sure that your products stand out from the rest when customers can’t touch them? How do they perceive value without the advantage of a sales associate to guide them in their purchase? How do you entice consumers without providing them the appeal of store displays? Visual merchandising utilizes the strategy of presenting products in a way that attracts and engages shoppers. Here are a few ways I use my expertise in visual merchandising online to enhance your ecommerce website.
Use High-Quality Product Images
If customers cannot physically hold your product, they aren’t able to inspect its quality. This means that a company who is able to convey quality through imagery will come out on top. To get the most out of visual merchandising online, use only high-resolution images. Be sure to showcase your product from various angles, with complimentary lighting and settings that fit your brand aesthetics. Maximize this by showing your product in use. This provides consumers the ability to scrutinize details and make more confident, informed decisions.
Always Use Consistent Branding
Your brand gains strength through consistency. When you commit to using consistent colors, fonts, language, and imagery it presents a cohesive feel. This instills trust and confidence, working to establish expectations in your customer base.
Brand cohesion helps to deliver a memorable experience, a promise of consistency. This not only reinforces your product’s to appeal to your target demographic, it helps to increase the likelihood they will make additional and subsequent purchases.
Strategic Product Placement
Just as visual merchandisers in-store work to effectively place products on shelves and racks, ecommerce retailers must thoughtfully curate their online shopping experiences. How is this done? When visual merchandising online, the answer is UI. Effective user interface (UI) design enables ecommerce sites to prioritize actions and drive conversions.
By using effective organization for your products and calls to action, site visitors are able to quickly find what they are looking for. The fewer steps that must be taken to reach the point of sale, the more likely the sale will be completed, making product placement and ecommerce UI essential for your online store.
Contextual Product Display
Using contextual product display allows customers to envision how your product fits into their life. It is essential, when visual merchandising online, to showcase your product in real-world settings. Demonstrating how your product provides a solution to your consumers unique situation increases confidence in your brand’s validity.
Another way that contextual product display can be used, is by organizing products that are complementary to each other into categories and displaying them together. This encourages upsells and cross-sells, and increases your revenue overall.
Dynamic Merchandising Techniques
Ecommerce is extremely competitive. It is very important to optimize and continually experiment with merchandising strategies. Omnichannel marketing allows your product exposure to a larger audience. Leveraging data analytics, and A/B testing can allow you to observe the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and UI design. If your results are not providing the outcomes you are looking for, you can pivot. Try something new. In the end, this ability to evaluate customer interaction with your storefront will help drive better results over time.
Visual merchandising online allows you to create a virtual immersive experience for your customers. It encourages your audience to engage in shopping experiences that are pleasant and memorable, instilling confidence in your brand. By providing high-quality product images, reinforcing your brand through consistency, strategic placement of products, contextual product display, and developing dynamic merchandising techniques, you can increase the effectiveness of your ecommerce website. When you merchandise with finesse and skill, you can have confidence that your shopper’s experience will be enjoyable and keep them coming back for more.
