5 Principles for Visual Merchandising

Visual Merchandising. A buzzword or a competitive advantage? An expense or a top-line

driving initiative? An art or a science?

If done right, Visual Merchandising can increase your customer engagement, improve your
customer experience, lift your revenues and drive your brand value. 75% of customer choice
decisions are still made in store – and Visual Merchandising can drive impulse buying
behavior. However, with the average store stocking over 2,000 SKUs, how can retailers
ensure Visual Merchandising efforts don’t go to waste and deliver true impact?

After working on “both sides of the fence” – building brands to succeed on the retailers’
shelves and advising leading retailers on how to succeed with Visual Merchandising – I
believe it is important to follow these 5 Key Principles for Visual Merchandising:

1. Design with the Consumer in Mind

The goal of Visual Merchandising is to provide a great experience to your customers – the
sale itself will follow. So it is key to truly know and understand your customers. What drives
them? What are their needs and wishes; what do they believe in; what makes them stay up all
night?

A common pitfall I often observe is retailers and brands

getting too caught up in store, layout and planogram
optimization – and forgetting the fact that customers
have two modes of decision making: rational and
automatic
The role of Visual Merchandising is to activate both – it needs to communicate “rational”
benefits and value propositions in an attractive way (such as prices and campaigns) and
leverage insight into what decisions humans are inclined to make. Latest research in
neuroscience makes it possible to predict customer choice – for example, customers
physically prefer the middle option due to the position of our eye pupils – so this insight
enables us to design our Visual Merchandising strategies that speak not only to our rational,
but also our automatic brains.

2. Activate the Brand

Visual Merchandising should be rooted in your brand identity and support what your brand
stands for. The store (both physical and digital) is a core customer touch-point – and
therefore the ideal playing field for your brand to interact with your customer. It is crucial
that your Visual Merchandising efforts reflect your brand’s position, leverage your brand's
assets and deliver your designed customer experience.
I remember how this January, when visiting the NRF Retail Big Show conference in New
York, I visited NIKEs House of Innovation – and the feeling I had when exploring the
displays in the 5-storey brand powerhouse. I could not help but feel one step closer to “being
an athlete” – even though I lose my breath just walking up a few flights of stairs. NIKEs
brand promise? “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If
you have a body, you’re an athlete”. So I was, without even noticing it, "living the brand"
– I knew right then and there that NIKE would enter my book of great Visual Merchandising
examples.

3. Engage All Senses

When thinking Visual Merchandising, I have noticed retailers often get stuck at the word
“visual” – ignoring the fact that humans have more senses than just sight. When done right,
all of these can play together to provide an authentic customer experience.

Think Sound – the music you play can directly affect customer mood and behavior in-store
or signal what target group your brand is aiming for. Touch can provide an additional
sensory layer to trying your products. Smell and Taste can drive automatic behavior by
activating memory structures and evoking emotions.

The importance of activating the different senses in Visual Merchandising will differ
depending on channel – to date, it is still difficult to activate Smell and Taste online – but
truly impactful Visual Merchandising focuses on providing a sensory experience beyond
just Sight.

  4. Leverage Interactive Experiences

The rise of retail tech has enabled retailers to provide interactive Visual Merchandising
experiences that increase customer engagement, this way allowing brands to differentiate
from competition. AI can serve as in-store advisory, also driving potential up-selling
opportunities by suggesting matched merchandise that would not otherwise be considered by
the customer and interactive aisles can double as digital tryout tools.

One of the latest examples that stuck with me was the CoverGirl Times Square Flagship
store, where instead of the traditional physical make-up samples one could try out different
lipsticks and eye shadows digitally – by scanning your face in the interactive mirror and
simply picking up the item you liked from the aisle, the lipstick / eye shadow color is
automatically transferred to your mirrored reflection. To me it was an amazing experience
being able to try out different make-up looks instantly and without the hassle of trying testers
that have been used by others before.

Interactive Visual Merchandising can truly lift your customer experience to “time well
spent” in-store.

5. Focus on Execution
Strategy is only as good as its execution – this holds true for Visual Merchandising too.
Retailers often tend to get caught up in the strategic design of Visual Merchandising or over-
focus on getting the latest tech-innovation in place in the race for differentiation through
innovation. What sometimes gets lost is the focus on execution excellence. Bugs when using
tech-solutions, too loud music, random over-crowded marketing materials can quickly turn
Visual Merchandising from virtue to vice – resulting in destroying instead of enhancing the
customer experience.

Poor execution can quickly turn Visual

Merchandising from virtue to vice
For Visual Merchandising to deliver real impact, it is important to ensure that the Visual
Merchandising Team secures consistent execution across the physical and digital store
footprint, that technology solutions work seamlessly when the customer uses it and that the
Visual Merchandising experience is in line with the overall Brand experience.

Visual Merchandising is both a science and an art

When designed with the customer and brand in mind, leveraging sensory cues and
interaction, and coupled with strong execution power, Visual Merchandising can drive
customer engagement, improve customer experience and drive both brand value and
revenues.
Place in the marketing mix of Domino’s pizza

Domino’s pizza has always maintained a direct channel with its customer

base.  The customers either call or send a message by telephone for the
pizza delivery. Consumers can also place their order online through the
official website of Dominos.  In both the cases, the packaged
food product is delivered and subsequently received by the buyer at the
mentioned address. If the order does not reach the buyer in allotted thirty
minutes, then the buyer does not have to pay for it. The order is delivered
free of charge. The delivery boys are the real heroes of this organization.
The detail of every route is decided beforehand and after an order is
placed, this route is followed so that minimum time is taken.

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One of the most common methods of eating a pizza is to dine-in the

Dominos outlet. Dominos has many outlets in very good locations. Most of
the shopping malls and main streets have a section for Domino’s pizza.
Domino’s is currently located in 73 countries and has more than 10000
stores.

Dominos Place & Distribution Strategy:

Following is the distribution strategy of Dominos:
Dominos operates on a franchise based model where 97% of its business is
franchise owned. Currently there are around 13000 Dominos stores globally. In the
United States around 4800 domestic franchise stores and 840 around franchisees
operating more than one stores. Internationally there are more than 7300 stores of
Dominos. Outside the United States, India is the next hotspot destination having
more than 1100 stores. It has 16 dough manufacturing centres and 1 equipment
supply centre, 1 vegetable processing centre and 1 pressed plant centre in America.
Similar kind of proportions are maintained globally although the machines and other
equipment are supplied by Dominos itself.
Dominos also has presence online as 95% of the transactions are done online through apps
and on its websites with more than 39 countries making orders online.