Merchandise Display- Are the consumers are being fooled?

Have you ever walked into a store with a shopping list in your hand and ended up purchasing more than that? Well!!! then I must say the store manager was good at tricking you. Yes! you were tricked. This article is all about Merchandise Display. Most of the retailer sell their rack space to the company manufacturing different consumable or wearable products. Before moving to the details of the article, we would like to share our happiness with you.

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‘Merchandise Display’ what is it all about?

Merchandise displaying has various terms including rack spacing, visual marketing, and visual merchandising. The concept was to optimize the presentation of a product to attract more buyers. The visual display can also increase the brand image. Let us simplify it further. When you enter a supermarket, a departmental store or any other retail store, you will notice that the products are spaced in different racks and most of the time, you buy the product that is nearer to you. Rather than finding a substitute for the product or the original product, you go for the product which falls under your visibility range. This is visual marketing or merchandise display marketing.

The retailers carefully position the product according to the height of the consumer who enters that particular shop. How does the retailer position a product? Or the first question that ponders is, ‘every customer has a different height’. Well! True!! We will get to that in the later section of the article.

Why they do it?

In the world of Business, everything is done to achieve the sales target and to increase the amount of revenue. Data show that people forgo the product they had planned to buy after entering the shop as they find a substitute at their hands reaches. Most of the companies that entered the competition with a competitive product in comparison to other brands, ask the retailer to increase their sales of the new product through product placing. Often, you see a product being lucratively displayed at the window of a store to attract more eyeballs.

This method of merchandise displaying in the store gives rise to the term of Rack-space-selling. Here, the retailer places the product in such a way at their shop, that it attracts consumers. Every store gets paid for such brand or merchandise display. The store manager receives a particular rate of commission for every item sold through merchandise display.

The irony here is that an end consumer pays for the item at the Maximum retail price, which actually incorporated the price of inputs, profits, and such display advertisements. So the commission is also a hidden cost that is borne by the consumers.

How they do it?

The product placing or the merchandise display is done based on statistical data that is collected from preceding years. Forcast is run based on these data and a predicted sale data is created. Data sources also register and compare the height of customers from different stores of different locations. Therefore as an observant consumer one must have noticed that a new launch is always placed to catch the gauging eyes. Even the most visited corner or the side of the store is also used for product placing. A store manager knows the popular corners of his store and brightly uses them to earn a commission.

A rack height, hence, plays a crucial role. For example, Japan, China, and the northeastern parts of India has lower rack heights in comparison to the other parts of the western world.

Merchandise display, therefore, is a clever advertisement trick with the punch of psychological touch, that plays with the shopping attitude of a rational consumer. Next time when you visit a store make sure to check the racks and your shopping list before you dump a product in your shopping cart.

Author: Mr. Sumon Banerjee. He possesses expertise in his subject and believes practical knowledge teaches you the best. He has expertise in law, management and consumer psychology.

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