Shelf and merchandising strategies are quite old trades in retailers and product/brand managers’ marketing mix. Tactics like building solid relationships with KAs (product/brand/store key accounts), advocating for premium shelf space, implementing shelf color blocking, or avoiding out-of-stocks are part of any retailer or brand manager’s strategy towards increasing sales.

Så, hur kan du få dina produkter att sticka ut? Vad kan du göra förutom dessa klassiska taktiker som alla gör? Och ännu viktigare, how can you take your product merchandising strategy from art to science så att dina produkter kommer att synas och väljas när du träffar shopparen? 

Vi tog ett försök att svara på alla dessa frågor som we put together an article to help you optimize and advance your merchandising strategy in a data-driven way, så du can rely more on facts vs. experience or gut feelings when making decisions.

Let’s dive into the why & how of a new data-driven approach built to deliver results.

Använda shopperdata för att förbättra din produktförsäljningsstrategi

You can differentiate your merchandising strategy, whether you are a retailer who wants to enhance store sales or a marketing manager who wants to increase product sales, by fatta mer välutbildade beslut angående din marknadsförings- och hyllstrategi. 

You have to use a more reliable way to increase the possibility of conversion & sales – a “hidden card” that makes your merchandising decisions better and more informed. 

Och det dolda kortet är det shoppare data.

Data can mean Purchase History, Customer Demographics, Product Preferences, Consumer Journey, Engagement Patterns, or Shelf Attention. And this type of info is what can make your merchandising strategy stand out.

But getting to the data isn’t always easy.

Vanliga problem när man skaffar shopperdata 

Usually, part of the merchandising strategy feels like you do some guesswork based on experience or standard practices. 

Big data means surpassing that and having a greater understanding of your consumer’s shopping habits. 

To get this type of data, most retailers use focus groups or analytics obtained from their point of sale systems and foot traffic analytics devices (people counters or beacons) – while those are helpful tools that enable you to make data-based decisions, they can only go so far in painting an insightful picture into what customers desire and want to buy. 

Let’s see why:

Fokusgrupper

For example, when deciding the packaging of the following SKU in your product portfolio, as a brand manager, one common practice is to conduct a focus group. But it is well known that people’s answers in focus groups are somewhat overthought and altered by post-rationalization, thus, not as objective as you would need them to be. 

Even if you conduct the perfect unbiased focus group, it still won’t give you data regarding a product’s capacity of keeping the attention. It may catch the attention at first glance during the focus group activities, but can the packaging hold that attention as well, thus increasing the chances of being bought? 

Ögonnivå är köpnivå

I samband med detaljhandelsundersökningar avslöjar visuell uppmärksamhet vad kunderna är naturligt intresserade av. Click To Tweet

As for shelf merchandising, everybody learned the basic rule: the benefits of merchandising come down to eye-level shelf interest – ögonhöjd är köpnivå: you need to place the product at the level of straightforward gaze. Products positioned much lower or higher than that aren’t quite noticed and therefore attract less attention from shoppers.

Considering the competition for attention in the eye-level area of interest, what you need to know is…knowing things your competition doesn’t. 

Så tillvägagångssättet på ögonhöjd/köpnivå kan vara en bra början för hyllförsäljning. 

• But, should you place the product more on the right or the left? 
• Is shelf 3 or shelf 4 more suitable for your product (bearing in mind that both are at eye level)? Where does the consumer look first? 
• And should it be placed next to that fellow brand with more striking packaging colors? 
• Is that particular space flattering for your product, or are the shoppers immediately drawn to other products in that area? 
• Which product in the planogram just received a glance, and which one retained their attention?

To conduct a proper merchandising strategy, you should be able to answer these types of questions and have access to real, objective, and direct data about your shoppers’ behavior in-store before the act of buying. 

You need to be able to “catch them in the act” and observe their authentic reaction and feedback on your product. 

Och that’s where 3D eye tracking comes in – with its power to capture all your user’s data in a non-intrusive way. 

Hur 3D-ögonspårning kan hjälpa till att få opartisk kunddata

I detaljhandeln, en av metoderna som används för att direkt observera vad kunden tycker och önskar är eyetracking. 

Analyzing the shopper’s eye movements can tell a lot about his perceptions, intentions, and future actions.

Och det kan också berätta mycket om dina produkter också - du kan se produktförsäljningen öka från försäljningssiffrorna, men bara Om du använder eyetracking kan du förstå om din produkt inte köptes för att den inte sågs eller gillades. 

So far, eye-tracking has been done mainly by using special glasses or headsets. These are given to the customers to be worn during the shopping process. 

Eftersom denna metod har bevisat sin effektivitet över tid, men också dess begränsningar, eftersom den är en ganska påträngande och kontrollerad metod, tog vi här, på Eyeware Tech, marknadsundersökningar och eyetracking ett steg längre och skapade 3D eye-tracking – en teknik som spårar visuell uppmärksamhet på distans från så långt som 1,3 m (4,3 fot) bort. 

Detta betyder:

• Inga glasögon – Det är en icke-påträngande metod
• Inget VR-headset – the shopper is not burdened by any heavy objects while shopping
• Inget personligt förhållningssätt med shoppenr – allt är anonymt och GDPR-vänligt 
• Ingen kalibrering

 

All you need is a depth-sensing camera, and you can track thousands of customers in a GDPR friendly anonymous way.

Using off the shelf depth-sensing cameras, it allows you to track multiple subjects, label objects of interest (shelves, displays, or other merchandising items) in the open space, and track attention towards them in real-time, with the help of GazeSense, a 3D eye tracking software created to be able to map your store or your point of analysis (shelf display, products, etc.).

Hur man implementerar data för att främja din strategi för marknadsföring och hyllprodukter 

When developing a merchandising strategy, especially as a retailer, crossing all the Ts and dotting all the Is is critical. Not only do you have to think big scale about the way you merchandise your shop (or your product, as a marketing manager), but also go into the small details, the small shelf or merchandising tactics that, although small, could have a high impact on your ROI.

Nedan, we created a checklist of essential merchandising factors to consider when developing a merchandising strategy antingen för din butik eller ditt varumärke/produkt. 

And to add that USP to your merchandising strategy, we also give a couple of insightful advice on when & how you could use 3D eye tracking for your merchandising strategy and, most importantly, how this technology helps you make better and more informed merchandising decisions:

Layout i butik 

As a retailer, you know the starkt samband mellan varuexponering och butikslayouter. Shoppers can be enticed by the way a store looks, and they are keen on having a store or shelf experience rather than go from aisle to aisle with their shopping list. 

Genom att använda 3D-ögonspårning för förbättringar av layout i butik kommer du att kunna analysera och få exakta svar på frågor som:

•  where does shoppers’ attention go first when they enter your store?
•  vad tittar folk på i låga eller höga gångar?
•  vilken display fångade blickarna i slutet av hyllan (den till höger eller den till vänster)?

Practically, at the end of the process, you will be able to influence the shopper’s experience and your sales for the better, having access to real, tangible data. You will förbättra layouten på din butik och göra det lättare att navigera – by having clarity on points of confusion, attention hotspots, and distractions.

You will have all that is needed to skapa en skräddarsydd butiksupplevelse – having all this data, you can combine the best place, the best products, and the best signage to create an appealing in-store hotspot or engagement area.

Hyllnivå 

One of the most critical parts of a merchandising plan is how you strategically arrange your shelves and create planograms. 

Knowing what products require premium shelf positioning and what products would have a better chance of selling if they were placed just a little more visibly is crucial for your sales. For example, let’s say that you are a retailer that has a private label and wants to know precisely the second place the shoppers look at on the shelf (supposing you reserve the first place to a top-selling brand in your category) in order to place the private label product. 

3D eye tracking enables access to this type of data by being able to analyze multiple subjects and their attention span on the shelf. The GazeSense programvara kan spåra saker som:

• hur lång tid det tog för köparen att fokusera på en specifik produkt på hyllan;
• vilket område han fokuserade på först, ordningen på blickarna;
• antalet gånger han/hon tittade på ett föremål;
• hur lång tid han/hon ägnade åt att titta på ett föremål på hyllan för första gången;
• hur lång tid han/hon ägnade åt att titta på ett föremål i genomsnitt.

Each type of gaze, eye movement, or blinking habit says something about your subconscious perception of a specific product. 

De 3D eye tracking software can be used to generate heat maps and opacity maps to show this type of information. The warmer or lighter an area on the shelf is, the more visual attention it receives.

Having this type of data analyzed, making decisions about your shelf strategy becomes a very professional and very “in-the-know” process that goes as far as guaranteeing good results, lämnar gissningarna bakom sig. 

You no longer have to wait to see how the customers act after you implement your shelf strategy and decide whether you have to change it or not, but rather directly benefit from exemplary shelf implementation and good results.

Visa prestanda 

When you have a product that sells better in one store than in another, it is instrumental in knowing what made that product so wanted in the store that sold it better. 

Maybe you prepared the same point of sale (PoS) kits/displays for every store in your chain for that product, but the results are different. What made it so? Or maybe you prepared two display prototypes with different shapes and colors and want to see which one grabs more attention.

One way to see how shoppers react to your display design or display kits is by tracking their attention to your displays in-store.

By using 3D eye tracking, you can see which signage is completely ignored, what shape/color/type of display grabs more attention, or which CTA is the one that turns heads and retains attention. 

This way, you can measure and report on display performance and answer important questions such as:

• what do shoppers look at/don’t look at when they pass an aisle? How do displays affect it;
• vilka skärmar som ses, inte syns, bara märks (3 sekunder eller mer), läses (2 sekunder eller mer), vilka som behåller uppmärksamheten och vilka som gav dig mer försäljning, i slutet av dagen;
• are my display promotions being read, glanced at, or ignored? Are these displays the reason for my good campaign results?
• moreover, you can analyze if displays that communicate different promotions are sucking attention away from aisles or if they’re helping sales grow.

Produktförpackning 

Tackling store layout and shelf performance are two parts of retail merchandising puzzle. Along with those two, a product merchandising strategy should be developed. 

You can have the perfect shelf spot, but if it’s not backed-up with an appealing design, it won’t give you the best results. 

3D eye tracking can answer essential questions when in a big marketing dilemma. As we’ve already mentioned, it can really make a difference in changing your strategy if your product didn’t sell, and it can explain why your product was not bought – you are able to track if shoppers just didn’t see your products or they saw it, analyzed it, but decided not to buy it. Detta är verkligen användbart för att beräkna dina nästa steg som produkt- eller handelschef.

 3D-ögonspårning kan också hjälpa dig evaluate branding and packaging directly on the shelf, before any big launches that you have in mind. It allows you to conduct proper A/B testing for packaging/branding if you want to launch a new or limited edition product. By placing the two different packaging designs on the shelf alternatively, you can see which one is better welcomed by the shopper’s eye and, in the end, by the shopper’s shopping cart. 

Och detsamma gäller för annonskampanjer också – du kan testa olika meddelanden i 1 eller 2 lokala butiker innan du går nationellt med din kampanj. 

Tracking the shopper’s reaction and gaze at the moment of purchase will give you the authentic, raw reactions that you genuinely need when assessing branding or advertising campaigns. And raw reactions will result in raw and pure data about the appeal of your in-store campaign and data-driven merchandising decisions.

Var du står med detaljhandelsvaruhandel kontra konkurrens

Let’s not forget about competitive research. What once was biased guesswork about how shoppers interact with your product vs. a competitor’s can now be factual.

 3D eye tracking lets you see how decided/undecided buyers are at the shelf, the number of brands seen before purchase, which were those brands, if they gazed longer at you or the competition, and what final choice they made. 

Moreover, you will see how they perceive you differently from the competition regarding purchasing: are you more grab & go than your first competitor or vice-versa? Is your product highly considered amongst the competitors when in front of the shelf, or do they pass you by?  

Understanding your place in-store and at the shelf, by comparison, puts things into perspective and can give you valuable hints for how to go along with your retail merchandising strategy.

Avslutning: Retail Merchandising Has Gone Tech. Kommer du att anpassa dig och utvecklas med den?

Data analytics has become the norm in online retail merchandising. And it should be more so in offline retail as well. 

You can now complement demographics, footfall, and local shopping behaviors with new deep data about shoppers’ in-store behavior and the attention they give to your products, shelves, and displays. 

With 3D eye tracking, merchandising is becoming more of a science than art, and strategically organizing stores, shelves, and displays is becoming more of a calculated process than guesswork. 

You can now know what specific elements in the display grabbed the shopper’s attention, what part of the shelves they scanned first, and how eye-catching certain products are to them. You can know what areas are well suited for sales and promotion and should be kept for awareness campaigns.

It is safe to say that eye tracking will become a permanent “guest” in the marketing research of retailers and their merchandising strategy process, transforming the retail industry into a more technological one. And in this technology and AI-driven retail climate, there is no going back: it is up to retailers to keep up with the emerging trends and remain competitive on the market.

We can assist you in gaining a competitive advantage in your retail merchandising strategy. Nå ut till Eyeware-teamet, och vi hjälper dig gärna att prova 3D-blickkodning i realtid med GazeSense!