When trying to understand how to merchandise your retail store shelves to draw customer's’ interest and increase sales – it is important to consider visual merchandising strategies. It defines the way of representing products on displays and shelves, the store layout, and even igniting the senses, which all contribute to offering a shopper experience while visiting your store. People still prefer in-store experiences because they want to interact with the items before purchasing them. This leads more customers to visit your retail store. Follow these dos and don'ts in retail merchandising to drive retail sales:

Visual Merchandising Do’s 

• Make it easy: While executing products on shelves, place high-priced, best-selling items on the topmost shelves to drive customer’s' attention. Also, don’t forget to put the significant items in the top-left corner of the shelves. In many studies, it has been found that people read from left to right, and top to bottom. So, placing products according to such theories can help increase sales. 
• Placing essential items on shelves: Always try to place essential items like milk and eggs in the furthest corner to encourage customers to walk through the store and purchase. It will be easier for people to understand the location of items, and results in making more sales.
• Focus on shopper importance: Shopper’s always like to do self-selection. So, placing highly impulsive, promotional and enticing products at eye-level and changing the store layout as per seasons and market demand could bring the highest profits. For separating green vegetables with other colorful ones could also attract customer eyes. Besides, some stores put closeout items in offer bins which are available at cheaper prices to attract customers. These visual merchandising techniques will help retailers to plan and execute their store shelves properly.
• Connect with people's senses: Create visual displays that stimulate shopper’s interest in engaging with senses like sight, smell, sound, touch and taste. This will promote impulse purchases and drive sales.
• Provide discounts and offers: Placing discount labels on products can make customers purchase items faster. Also, this reduces out of stocks and fills the shelves with new and other products efficiently.

Visual Merchandising Don’ts  

• Don’t separate like-items: Retailers should not place like-items like beverages, chips, and jams separately. This will cause shoppers to find more time to find other brands of beverage items. So, to avoid the time in finding like-items, retailers should place such items next to each other. .
• Try to avoid overcrowded store space: Do not fill many products on display, which makes it difficult for shoppers to walk through the store. Therefore, fill the essential products on store displays, while providing enough space for shoppers to move around displays.
• Don’t fill shelves with excess stock: Always fill the store shelves with adequate inventory. Otherwise, people will miss out on the essential products. Also, leaving too much empty space between shelves can make customers think that you are running out of inventories. So, re-organize shelves frequently as per market, seasonal, and customer trends. And leave the shelves simple, neat and clear.
• Don’t forget to change displays on seasons: Always use the seasons to change displays. This helps customers to walk inside your store and make purchases. It also helps to introduce seasonal products and entice more customers to the store.
• Don’t forget the shelf life of items: Finally, do not ignore the shelf life of items on your store shelves. Make sure that everything is good for shoppers to purchase, and keep inventories properly stocked to drive 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. Planograms can be designed by easily dragging and dropping the products. The multi-device compatibility feature of POG allows you to obtain, share and edit planograms on any device, including your phone. It helps in designing store-specific planograms for increased product visibility and sales.

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