ARTYSMITH2: STOCK ROTATION

You know the feeling when you walk in your favourite room in the house and someone has moved something, you notice it straight away. This is because we get so familiar with our surroundings that we stop seeing stuff, our brains only register the general pattern of things and it’s only when that familiar pattern is changed that we start looking again.

This is why retailers need to rotate their stock, move it around and shake things up a bit to get their regular customers to start looking again. So here’s the thing, if it’s easier to sell more to existing customers than find new ones doesn’t it make sense to find every means possible to get those existing customers to keep looking.

The only change to this principle would be if you’re providing a convenience offer such as food or DIY, here you want to make the shopping experience as enjoyable and easy as possible because customers are there because they have to be, not necessarily because they want to be.

For everyone else if you want your customers to keep looking you have to keep moving stock around and remerchandising, that is in addition to everything else of course.

This doesn’t have to be a major upheaval but a few slight changes such as swapping one shelf of merchandise with another can make all the difference to those sales. Having said that to keep your retail offer fresh I would advocate major change every couple of months and more often if you can. By doing this you will freshen up your retail space and improve the whole customer experience without having to invest money in lots of new product lines.

Just a few things to remember though, keep your best sellers in prime selling spaces; eye level is buy level and this includes the shelf just below eye level. Recognise your hot-spot selling spaces, those areas where customers naturally gravitate and linger (regardless of product) and avoid putting products below knee height (apart from the big stuff) as customers don’t like bending.

This is simple stuff and it will only cost you time but it will allow you respond to windows of opportunity, seasonal variations, current trends and of course the weather, you’re not going to put out all your picnic merchandise in your best selling hot-spot space if the forecast is rain for the next three weeks, are you…

All the best

Peter

#visualcommunicator #retailconsultant #designer

tel 07907 691711

email info@artysmith2.com

#aboutme – the story so far