Your product mix is both a source of financial success and a cause of company risk. Product assortment strategy has the power to make or break a retail firm, which is why selection judgments should be made at the pre-planning stages before products are launched.
A well-thought-out product assortment planning maximizes revenue and profits while reducing risk. It can also influence inventory choices.
Assortment decisions must be ideally made during the pre-season planning stages, which implies that buying products occurs a year or more before the first sale — and the selling season may last another year.
During the in-season process, a lot can be explored and fixed, but the assortment approach cannot be changed. Therefore creating a great product assortment strategy right at the beginning maximizes revenue while reducing risk.
An effective assortment optimization in retail is crucial since it determines which products the buyer will be exposed to, influencing purchasing decisions.
Explored below are the three things to consider when opting for Assortment planning in retail.
Weigh In On The Target Audience: Product assortment will be easier to attain after the merchant settles on the type of market he chooses to operate. As a business owner, you understand your brand and its value for the clients; product assortment planning will be relatively simpler to develop.
Nevertheless, if there is uncertainty, the target audience will be left bewildered. A small store with a niche market, for example, is likely to have an extensive product selection in one category. Similarly, an online store that caters to varied age ranges and individuals of diverse backgrounds will have comprehensive product assortment strategies in place.
Keep a Tab On Trends: Even if a retailer must develop an interim assortment plan, they must do so. Risks can hamper the market without any intimation. The covid 19 pandemic is an apt modern-day example of this. As a result, there was a significant shift in clients’ purchasing behavior.
The retail industry was one of the sectors that faced an existential crisis. However, the complete curfew and shutdown enforced remote buying or online shopping even more vociferously. It is particularly true in the case of apparel.
When coats and professional pants took a backseat, the sleepwear and loungewear market rose to the occasion. Given the rising popularity of face masks, businesses specializing in clothing selling attempted to profit from the trend by offering attractive masks that complimented the clothing.
Invest In Visual Merchandising: A solid visual merchandising approach is critical for retail assortment planning. By properly aligning advertising, revenue, logistics, and design processes to strengthen your assortment, you can get an advantage over your competition.
In general, visual merchandising is an appealing style of product presentation that attracts customers and encourages them to buy. Visual merchandising is used not only in traditional commerce but also in internet shopping.
Visual merchandising in an e-commerce scenario aids customers in navigating the buyer’s journey as smoothly as feasible. Before moving on to another website, consumers are exposed to appropriate product categories and offers through this marketing strategy.
Summing Up: Cross-selling should be considered while creating e-commerce assortment decisions to improve revenues. It will also assist you in evaluating how various goods in the product variety can complement one another.
Cross-selling allows clients to purchase items with better profit margins and other things they may want or want. For this reason, cross-selling has become popular in e-commerce as a profitable tactic.
