Visual merchandising started in pureplay retail, elements of it have been used to great effect in eCommerce, now visual merchandising in video is the next big challenge. Why? live video shopping is growing, quickly. Its also a form of marketing that is a bridge between online and retail. As a result – savvy marketeers have the opportunity to use the best of both channels to execute well, drive outcomes and capture the march in this new and emerging trend in retail.
What is visual merchandising?
Visual merchandising involves presenting and displaying products in a way that makes them visually appealing and desirable to shoppers . Things like Store Exterior (display window), Store interior (the look and feel inside the store), store layout (where products are placed throughout the store), and the instore sales experts themselves (how they are trained, presented and defined behaviours) represent examples of visual merchandising. The point here is, visual merchandising is all about using visual displays to capture the attention and interest of shoppers.
The outcome of visual merchandising is clear: increasing conversion and average order value. How? Well, the practice of visual merchandising aims to capture the attention of the shopper and help the purchase along (of what they need), as well as drive additions, or cross sells.
What are the components of best practice visual merchandising?
The top live stream shopping operations utilise 3 key areas to drive outcomes:
- Visual immersion
- Product Matrix
- Product placement
Let’s look at these three components individually to get a picture of why they ware so important in video commerce.
Visual immersion
This is setting up your retail ‘space’. What do you want shoppers to see when they come into a store? What do you want them to see, think and feel when they walk in? Retailers spend endless hours working through this. Generally, it needs to reflect the ideal merchandising for each product group in the virtual showroom. this helps customers decide what to buy. Brand teams have a say in this too. Its more often than not, the first experience a customer has of a brand, so it has to be good.
Product matrix
Ever stood in a supermarket isle and not known what variant of a product to buy? This is probably an example of an ill defined product matrix. Conversely, have you ever walked into a great retail environment (say a great fashion retail store), and had a retail expert take you through a fabulous journey, getting you started on what you wanted – and suggesting a bunch more great things, that match perfectly with your initial choice? That would be the use of a great product matrix. A great product matrix provides direction on which products to focus on, what to do next and probably drive key revenue generators.
Product placement
Using that same fashion retail example above, the retail expert, armed with their product matrix (what to do when), follows a well scripted buy-flow attach conversation. From a visual merchandising perspective, the retail expert has those products to hand at precisely the right time.
What is the role of visual merchandising in live stream video shopping?
Confer With sets out to merge the quality of a store experience with a new type of digital engagement, while being respectful of your brand principles. When you set up your visual environment, you have a number of things that are uniquely digital and a number of things that are uniquely retail.
Your space has the opportunity to be visually rich, a great introduction to a brand, but it’s a far smaller space compared to a retail space. A great product matrix is going to support the engagement process between a retail expert and a shopper. Getting them organised is the name of the game here. Online creates an expectation in a consumer that everything is to hand. Unfortunately, that means thousands, if not tens of thousands of skews. Giving the retail experts a plan and giving them the products they need to hand will be a game changer.
Supporting retail experts with immersion tools – gives customers something to engage with while a retail expert plans the next addition. Structuring this environment makes a massive difference to staff morale and sets them on the front foot to do what they do best – engage with customers and fulfil their needs.
Visual merchandising in video shopping is a new practice and requires some planning and expertise to make it work seamlessly. The Confer With team will guide you through that process as part of your onboarding. Make sure you ask about how you visually merchandise well.
