How To Improve Your Retail Processes - From Space Planning To Visual Merchandising

From range analysis and 3D space planning to publishing visual merchandising guidelines and compliance feedback, many retailers such as ASDA George, adidas, Kaufhof and more have optimised their retail processes using Visual Retailing’s technology. Read on and watch the above video to learn just how.

With the aim of delivering the ultimate in-store customer experience, the retail flow is the process in which a collection of products is sent to stores to be merchandised from head office and presented in the best way possible. As it involves a number of steps to be taken - along with collaboration from several teams - it’s important to make this flow simple and effective. 

The retail flow covers range analysis and creation of product collections. planning and merchandising the correct store fixtures, production of visual merchandising guidelines and also sending these guidelines to stores - ensuring they have been followed with effective compliance feedback measures.

Having an effective retail flow gives the key benefit of improving collaboration between teams and increasing key retail KPIs (see here to learn about how our technology helps 6 key retail KPIs). 

 

Range analysis with MockShop

Creating a balanced range of products in a collection is crucial in improving in-store experience and capitalising on current retail trends. 

Through using MockShop you can take article data - automatically combined with images of your product samples - and create a visual overview of your collection.

To balance the collection, you can sort and visualise by several criteria such as price, store cluster, margin - or elements such as colour and style to create one that will inspire your customers and improve sell-through. 

But that’s not all you can do to improve your retail flow by using Visual Retailing’s software.

Having a visual overview of your range allows you to sort and balance a collection in the most effective way possible - with almost unlimited possibilities of sorting by various criteria

Having a visual overview of your range allows you to sort and balance a collection in the most effective way possible - with almost unlimited possibilities of sorting by various criteria

 
MockShop automatically pulls in your product data so you can simply drag and drop to merchandise a fixture or your whole shop floor in a 3D environment

MockShop automatically pulls in your product data so you can simply drag and drop to merchandise a fixture or your whole shop floor in a 3D environment

3D space planning with MockShop

Planning fixtures and store space can be a costly process - especially when using physical mock-up stores. Reducing money and time spent on space planning is therefore crucial to improving this key part of your retail flow. 

MockShop allows you to create and fill out a 3D store space with your collection’s products imported in real time. All that you need to do is merchandise products from the correct store cluster and drag and drop them into the 3D space. The software calculates a range of key data points so you can ensure your collection will deliver results. 

The next step? Publishing a set of concise, complete instructions for merchandising directly to the correct store cluster. 

 

Publishing visual merchandising directives to ShopShape

Publishing visual merchandising guidelines from Head Office can sometimes be fraught with difficulty. That's why it's important to ensure the instructions are clear, visual and are relevant to the right store cluster - otherwise compliance becomes more time consuming. 

Once a 3D fixture and planogram has been created in MockShop, all that's required is a single click to publish the directive to store. Now specific stores receive guidelines for their cluster and - using the ShopShape app - can view it on their in-store device in 3d. 

From the app they can click on the product, see the quantity, article number, name and any other relevant information.

 

A simple right click and 'publish' sends the merchandising guidelines to the specified store cluster where the in-store user has a perfect 3D overview of what needs to be merchandised - and where

A simple right click and 'publish' sends the merchandising guidelines to the specified store cluster where the in-store user has a perfect 3D overview of what needs to be merchandised - and where

 
Head office can then track and monitor compliance in real time across all stores. Any issues? The application allows communication to ensure a speedy remedy of compliance problems as they arise - giving them a full insight and overview into how stor…

Head office can then track and monitor compliance in real time across all stores. Any issues? The application allows communication to ensure a speedy remedy of compliance problems as they arise - giving them a full insight and overview into how stores are merchandised

Compliance feedback with ShopShape

Compliance feedback is crucial in ensuring a consistent customer experience can be spread across all stores of any cluster. Of course, achieving perfect compliance is difficult, so there is a distinct need for a simple feedback process to tackle any issues as they arise. 

Now that the fixture is merchandised according to the guidelines from Head or Regional office, the next step is to take a photo of it and the ShopShape software uploads it. The office receives an actual image of the fixture and can communicate with the store in real time in case there are any changes due to lack of stock etcetera. 

All stores within this cluster are grouped and have their compliance feedback readily available for the office to view.  The Head - or Regional office - then has a centralised dashboard containing the data to help them make key decisions after thorough analysis. 

 

Ready to see how you can improve your retail processes with Visual Retailing's software?


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