From new to the last: the life cycle of shoes in merchandising
16.08.2013 17560

From new to the last: the life cycle of shoes in merchandising

Visual Merchandising Specialist Nina Zaslavskaya and author of the resource visual-merch.com talks about how to work with a shoe model at different stages of her "life" in the store.

Increasing sales is the main goal of visual merchandising, which is achieved by the use of certain techniques and specific actions in the trading floor and on the window. Each new model arriving at the warehouse goes a certain way in the store, and at each of its stages the merchandiser or the one who performs its functions works with it. It should be noted that the recommendations of this article are mainly based on calculation by category (for more information on categorization, see the article “Everything on the shelves: four ways to arrange shoes,” published in Shoes Report No. 106).

The categorization seems to us more progressive in the economic and middle price segments. But the general principles and approaches to the presentation on the trading floor, described here, can be used for other types of calculations.

New
It is of course desirable to place the new item from the delivery in the best places, such as the entrance equipment and the display case. If you have cubes, stands, or other props from the VM's arsenal of expressive means, use them to present models from the new delivery. If the delivery contains models of different categories - platform sandals, stiletto heels, ballet flats - then you should not "dump" all the new items indiscriminately. First, you need to determine which category is worth betting on in a given time period, and place it on the input equipment. The decision about which category to promote is made based on demand, season and even the specific weather outside. Here you can add "old" models to the input equipment if they fall into this category.

Models of other categories that do not fall on the input equipment are presented at the best places in their categories. The best seats in the hall are determined empirically: stand at the entrance and see what points in the hall are striking to your eyes, what you notice first. If the interior design of the store is executed correctly and taking into account the specifics of the shoe assortment, such points must be.

It is better to display new items, models of different categories in a showcase - so we will show the breadth of the assortment. It is better that they be united by a single palette (color history), which in shoes usually consists of one dark base color, one light base color and one or two fashionable colors. For a change, sometimes for some small period you can put different models of the same color, for example: red - before Valentine's Day. Carefully study the holidays that take place in your city. For example, in St. Petersburg every year in June, the very popular Sensation electronic dance music festival takes place, to which everyone should come strictly in white from head to toe. Shoe sellers should devote a week to this event and put white shoes on display.

Best Sellers / Slow Sellers

After a certain time, you need to check the sales of new products and rearrange according to the results of the check. Depending on the turnover and the period between deliveries in your store, the period after which you can judge the fate of the new product may be different. If the store has a lot of traffic and frequent deliveries, after a week you can conclude whether this or that category and model are in demand: whether customers pick it up, measure how many sales are in this category as a whole. If deliveries once a month, or even less often, there are not many buyers, this will take 10-14 days.

Categories and best-selling models move around or stay at the focal points, the best places in the store, stand out with a variety of coasters. Nearby you can put POS-material, which further emphasizes the buyer’s attention on this model: “Bestseller”, “Genuine leather”, “Best price”. The meaning of the pointer, of course, must be true.

Sellers must be officially informed about the models and best-selling categories by conducting mini-training for them on these products. This applies, of course, to large stores; in small sellers, they themselves are usually well informed about the best seller. In addition, in large-sized trading floors, it is useful to check whether the best-selling models are located exactly in the places that are intended for them, because sometimes during the day the goods are rearranged by buyers or sellers themselves.

If a purchase error has occurred and for some reason (color, strange design, inconvenience of the pads), the product is not in demand at all, it is not measured and especially not bought, it makes no sense to spend visual presentation resources on it. You should not continue to expose the model to the best places in the category, and the non-selling category does not need to be presented at the best place in the store. After analyzing the sales, the sellers - that is, a product that sells poorly - should move to secondary places.

Often the staff again and again puts in a better place a model that is not for sale - "what if?" This can be partially justified only if the assortment of the store is not replenished and the goods move around the store in a circle. In a store with an updated assortment, it is unacceptable to give a good point to the presentation of the slow sellers or leftovers.

Leftovers

A well-selling model sooner or later becomes the remainder, i.e. remains in one size. Leftovers are sold poorly - everyone knows. Most retailers do not care about removing residuals from the regular layout, as a result, they take up space and disappoint the buyer when he finds out that there is not the right size. At this point, you could put another model, behind which there is a full dimensional grid, a model that can be sold.

On the other hand, the leftovers are former bestsellers, so you should not completely discount them. A good way out is to organize a zone of residues, gathering them all together in the “cold” zone or somewhere in the box office, and placing visible POS material nearby. In order for people to pay attention and come to see this assortment, it is best to make a small nominal discount - 3-5%, also marking it on the POS material “Last size, 3% discount”. This will attract buyers and provide an opportunity to sell some balances before the sale, making only a minimal discount, which ultimately will help the turnover. Sellers should well remember the models and sizes from this zone in order to promptly offer the buyer a similar model from the remains in the right size.

Visual merchandising specialist Nina Zaslavskaya talks about how to work with a shoe model at different stages of her "life" in ...
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