Did we ever thought of the kind of change required in Retail? How we can give it a thought? A Change becoming a necessity? Looking at today’s situation – Covid-19, there is an urge to bring in change in every aspect.
The arise of Corona Virus has made everyone to go creative and innovative in different ways by staying at home, visiting stores and being virtual to provide ideas.
Visual merchandising (VM) is a practice of developing and implementing into 3d attractive visual displays within Retail stores. With the help of the store interiors, displays, product placement and floor layouts helps to attract the shoppers with the end objective of Sales. VM has not changed fundamentally but it’s the retail environment that has changed in every exciting aspect.
Retail industry has always been very competitive. With the increasing demand of shoppers over online shopping for purchasing products has made the traditional store visit difficult due to safety and precautions. Retailers need to play their game to get the business back with the ‘New Normal Era’, constantly being innovative and giving the best shopping experience yet enjoying for them to keep returning.
Here are some aspects, I think can help in the current scenario:
The Store Becomes A Story:
Visual Merchandising inspires the shoppers to connect with brand through the store interior, the look & feel and of course the merchandise. The merchandiser plans the products according to the store look and feel that evokes the theme with desired effect through visual displays. An effective and attractive in-store display sparks the customers with emotional impact, store ambience and brand personality.
Visibility:
Whether it be a store or an online purchase, visibility plays an important role as it shows features of the product and unique quality to buy it. The visibility of the product helps customers to drive the loyalty to the high margin products and end up purchasing which in return leaves an impact for brand through mouth publicity or social sharing. The merchandisers keep a track of the fast selling product – popular and trending item and make it most visible for the customers in different requirements – color palette, cuts and other embellishments.
Helps The Consumers Function:
Regardless of the Industry, the relationship with the customers is going to help the brands to bring back the business with the products and the services provided in the best or worst times. There needs to be a work environment where solutions are always ready if problems arise or not, a quick response to face the problem and get over it.
Contact-less Commerce:
As per current situation, people are more interested in contact-less delivery as the virus can be dangerous for both ends. The consumers have no choice then to rather stay at home unless it’s an emergency. More people are opting to buy on e-commerce and demand has gone huge too, which is affecting the traditional way of visiting stores and a physical visibility of the same. The idea of selecting and taking possession of the purchases without physical contact is the need of time, there is a huge demand for contact-less commerce.
Plan For New Normal Era:
In this Corona Virus situation, the things have changed temporarily and not permanently. The acceptance of the shoppers as per the situation is the way to build the business again. There are many ways to get into the ‘New Normal Era’.
- How do the world is evolving, what are the customers and our requirements?
- What kind of client base do we have and how deeply we know about them?
- How can we get the trust in this situation, apart from our competitors?
- What are the priorities now onwards?
- How can we grow and how we will access it?
‘MAKING REALITY MORE INTERESTING’
STORY OF A VISUAL MERCHANDISER 