In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, the first impression is everything. Each click, scroll, and product listing matters, and that’s when merchandising matters. Merchandising isn’t about offering amazing products; merchandising is about displaying them in a manner that captures your user’s attention, tells your brand story, and drives sales.
The recent data from a 2024 industry report states that 78% of online shoppers believe visually pleasing layouts and related product recommendations play an influencing role in making purchase decisions. Moreover, companies who have optimized for digital merchandising saw average orders increase by as much as 30% and accelerated checkout processes, giving them a competitive edge.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) offers a comprehensive set of merchandising capabilities, empowering e-commerce companies to create high-performing, highly customizable digital storefronts. Whether you’re launching compelling product carousels, planning promotions at optimal times, or reshaping layouts to highlight dynamic content in reaction to consumer actions, SFCC’s powerful platform raises merchandising to new heights.
What is eCommerce merchandising?
At its core, merchandising involves curating the customer journey. This means strategically placing banners, recommendations, and promotional content based on shopper behavior and seasonal trends. By creating a visually stimulating online environment, merchandising drives measurable improvements in conversion rates, click-through rates, and average order values. It is not only about making the website look good but also about making the shopping journey as intuitive and appealing as possible.
E-commerce merchandising is both an art and a science of strategically displaying your products and promotions across your website. It involves all visual and interactive elements driving a consumer’s attention to browse, consider, and ultimately purchase a product.
At its essence, merchandising is creating an optimized customer journey. This is done by strategically placing recommendations, promotional content, and banners based on locations, customer behavior, and seasonal trends. Through the development of an engaging visual online experience, merchandising generates quantifiable conversions in click-throughs, conversion rates, and average orders. It is not just about making the site visually appealing but also about making the shopping journey as attractive and seamless as possible.
What does it mean to merchandise your eCommerce site
Merchandising your eCommerce site means organizing and presenting your products in a way that not only looks attractive but also strategically encourages purchases. It goes far beyond listing products on a page, this process involves a deliberate, data-driven design of your entire online storefront.
In practice, merchandising means:
- Curating a dynamic display of products: By choosing which products to feature prominently, you can drive attention to new arrivals, best sellers, or items on promotion.
- Creating targeted promotional banners and offers: These visual cues help your customers immediately identify deals or seasonal specials, creating a sense of urgency.
- Personalizing the shopping experience: Using data, such as past browsing history and purchase behavior, to tailor what content is shown to each visitor ensures that every interaction feels unique and relevant.
Merchandising your e-commerce store involves structuring and displaying your products in a way that not only looks appealing but also drives customers towards purchase. It’s so much more than placing products onto a page, this process entails a calculated, data-informed design of your whole online shop.
In practice, merchandising involves
- Curating an exciting product showcase: By deciding which products to highlight, you can draw customers’ eyes to new products, bestsellers, or products in promotion.
- Designing targeted promotional banners and offers: Such visual indicators enable your customers to recognize offers or seasonal promotions instantly, generating a feeling of urgency.
- Making shopping personal: Leveraging data, including browsing history and purchase history, to provide each visitor with content suitable to them that ensures every visit feels unique and relevant.
Key elements of eCommerce merchandising
A good e-commerce website is built on some key elements that create an attractive and effective shopping experience. Here, we discuss each of those basic components below:
- Clear, Intuitive Layout: A well-organized layout is key to ensuring that website visitors can easily navigate your website. It includes well-thought-out menus, categories, and filter options that help customers quickly get what they’re looking for. When your website’s design is clean and easily accessible, consumers stay longer and are likely to explore more products.
- Captivating Homepage: Your homepage often serves as the digital storefront. It needs to convey your brand’s message instantly and feature your best products or promotions right from the get-go. High-quality visuals, concise messaging, and strategic banner placement make an appealing homepage. Including hero banners that highlight current deals or seasonal collections can capture the visitor’s attention right away.
- Simplified Purchasing Path: The optimization of the checkout process to minimize the number of steps needed to make a purchase is important in reducing cart abandonment. This entails simplifying checkouts so customers can quickly add products to their cart, review their selection, and make payments. Features such as guest checkout options and mobile-optimized payment processes play an important role to a frictionless buying experience.
- Smooth Navigation: Intuitive navigation is not merely about menus, it’s about applying keen labels, search filtering, and breadcrumbs so users always have an idea of where they are. That way, customers can backtrack easily when they want to or navigate further into categories as needed without getting lost, improving site usability in the process.
- Engaging Product Descriptions: Detailed yet easy-to-read product descriptions can be the deciding factor between a product being added to the cart or skipped. They should provide key information like features, benefits, and use cases, written in a conversational tone that resonates with your target audience. Including customer reviews or ratings along with those descriptions can build an additional level of credibility.
- Multiple Product Photos: Visuals play an integral part in e-commerce. Providing multiple high-quality images from various angles helps customers form a clearer picture of the product. Some websites even have videos or 360-degree views to provide an overall visual impression. Some sites even include videos or 360-degree views to give a comprehensive visual representation. This transparency reduces uncertainty and builds buyers’ trust.
- Integrated Membership or Loyalty Programs: Loyalty programs can reward repeat business through incentives for customer interactions. Including such programs in merchandising, for instance, by offering exclusive offers or early access to new products, makes customers feel a sense of belonging. Smooth integration of such rewards within the design of a website fosters brand loyalty over time.
- Dynamic Banners and Promotional Offers: Banner placements on key pages, such as the homepage or category pages, are effective tools for showcasing offers, flash sales, and exclusive promotions. These elements grab immediate attention and can be updated easily to reflect current marketing campaigns or seasonal trends.
- Time-Sensitive Product Tags and Labels: Tags like “Limited Stock,” “Just Arrived,” or “Flash Sale” create urgency. They can be automatically updated through the Salesforce Commerce Cloud using predefined rules so that the message remains accurate without manual intervention. These dynamic labels help emphasize the offer’s value and timeliness, encouraging customers to make faster choices.
The business benefits of eCommerce merchandising
If executed properly, eCommerce merchandising has a direct impact on various critical business drivers and overall customer satisfaction:
- Higher Conversions:
Targeted and strategic content deployment streamlines the decision-making process, decreasing friction in the buying process. Customers convert better when they receive offers tailored to them and an easy-to-use shopping process.
- Increased Average Order Value (AOV):
Thoughtfully designed upsells, cross-sells, and bundled products get customers to purchase more than they originally planned. This not only grows the size of each transaction but also creates an overall perceived increase in value in the shopping experience.
- Better Inventory Turnover:
Successful merchandising serves to bring slow items to light, allowing inventory to be cleared out through promotional offers or buy-item bundling. Doing so in an anticipatory manner keeps inventory fresh and appealing to customers.
- Enhanced Customer Retention:
An engaging site that consistently updates its offerings based on customer behavior creates a memorable shopping experience. Returning customers are more likely to stay loyal when they feel the website always has something new and tailored just for them.
- Stronger Brand Storytelling:
Each element of your merchandise, from banners to product tags, contributes to the larger narrative of your brand. Consistent messaging reinforces your brand identity and helps build a deeper connection with your audience.
- Improved Customer Journey:
Every touchpoint, from entering the homepage to finalizing a purchase, is thoughtfully optimized for ease of use. This smooth navigation not only helps reduce abandoned carts but also cultivates positive word-of-mouth and repeat visits.
Why choose Salesforce Commerce Cloud for merchandising?
Salesforce Commerce Cloud stands out in the crowded e-commerce landscape by offering a suite of sophisticated merchandising tools designed to streamline and enhance the customer experience. Here’s why SFCC is considered the best choice for merchandising:
- Dynamic Product Carousels and Personalized Displays: Leveraging AI-powered insights (powered by Salesforce Einstein), SFCC dynamically presents curated product lists and recommendations that are tailored to each visitor’s preferences. This personalization enhances the shopping experience and drives increased engagement.
- Easy-to-Manage Campaigns and Slots: With features like campaigns and slots, you can assign specific promotional initiatives to designated areas on your website, be it a homepage banner or a special category page. This modular approach allows for agile campaign management, ensuring that the right offers are seen at the right time.
- Advanced Scheduling and Content Management: The platform allows you to schedule the launch and expiration of banners, promotions, and product tags. This means you can easily manage flash sales, seasonal campaigns, or even time-based product launches without the need for constant manual updates.
- Customizable and Automated Tagging: SFCC makes it simple to apply specific product tags based on real-time rules such as date, stock levels, or customer segments. This automation ensures that your customers always see relevant labels like “New Arrival” or “Limited Stock,” adding a layer of urgency and relevance to your offerings.
- Real-Time Performance Insights: Built-in analytics and reporting tools allow you to monitor the performance of different merchandising elements across your site. This helps you quickly identify which campaigns are delivering the best results and make data-driven decisions to optimize future efforts.
How to merchandise your site in B2C Commerce Cloud
Implementing effective merchandising in Salesforce B2C Commerce is a step-by-step process that ensures every part of your site is optimized for both aesthetics and performance. Here’s how you can get started:
- Leverage Campaigns and Slots: Campaigns allow you to plan and execute marketing initiatives with clear objectives. Within Salesforce Commerce Cloud, slots designate pre-defined areas on your site (such as the homepage or category pages) where promotional content can be easily placed. This setup simplifies the task of keeping your promotions visible and contextually appropriate.
- Schedule Your Content: Time-based scheduling features enable you to control precisely when promotional banners, carousels, or product tags appear. Whether it’s for a short-term flash sale or a recurring seasonal promotion, you can set start and end dates to automate your campaigns and reduce manual workload.
- Assign Products and Categories Strategically: Utilize Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s sophisticated filtering and search refinement tools to assign products to specific campaigns. This means you can target collections based on inventory levels, popularity, or even customer demographics, ensuring that promotions are relevant and timely.
- Implement Dynamic Product Tagging: Configure your system to automatically apply dynamic tags (such as “Best Seller,” “Limited Edition,” or “New Arrival”) based on preset rules. This not only keeps your product listings up-to-date but also adds a compelling element of urgency and exclusivity that can influence purchasing behavior.
- Configure and Customize Content Assets: Create engaging HTML-based banners, hero images, and promotional messages that align with your campaigns. These assets should be designed with consistency in mind, ensuring that every visual element reinforces your brand’s message and enhances the overall shopping experience.
- Test, Preview, and Optimize: Use the Business Manager within Salesforce Commerce Cloud to preview how each campaign will appear across different devices and channels. Regular testing ensures that everything looks and functions as expected before the content goes live, allowing for adjustments based on real-time feedback.
- Monitor Performance and Iterate: Track performance metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and sales figures. Analyzing these insights allows you to understand which elements are driving success, enabling data-driven optimizations for future campaigns.
Why Salesforce Commerce Cloud is the best choice for merchandising your site
The art of merchandising is about more than just displaying products, it’s about creating a seamless, engaging, and personalized experience for every shopper. Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a comprehensive solution with built-in tools that empower brands to refine and scale their merchandising efforts with precision.
By choosing Salesforce Commerce Cloud, you can:
- Plan efficiently: Leverage advanced scheduling tools to manage multiple campaigns concurrently without missing a beat.
- Deliver personalized experiences: Use AI-driven product recommendations and customized messaging to ensure each visitor’s experience is tailored to their needs.
- Highlight promotions effectively: Utilize dynamic banners, tags, and curated displays to capture your customer’s attention and drive conversions.
- React swiftly: With real-time performance tracking and automated content management, you can adapt and optimize your strategies in response to changing market trends and inventory levels.
How Ranosys can help you with merchandising management
At Ranosys, we pride ourselves on being a trusted partner for brands looking to excel in the e-commerce space. With deep expertise in Salesforce Commerce Cloud and decades of experience in digital transformation, we have helped numerous clients elevate their merchandising strategies to achieve tangible business outcomes.
Here’s how we support our clients:
- Strategic Campaign Design: We work closely with your team to design promotional campaigns that resonate with your brand’s identity and target audience. From conception to execution, we ensure that every campaign is aligned with your business goals.
- End-to-End Implementation: Our certified Salesforce experts set up and configure all the essential merchandising elements from dynamic carousels and personalized homepage content to automated tagging and scheduling rules. We ensure your platform is optimized for performance and scalability.
- Data-Driven Optimization: Leveraging analytics and real-time insights, we continuously monitor campaign performance. This data-driven approach allows us to refine your merchandising strategies over time, ensuring sustained growth and higher conversion rates.
- Omnichannel Integration: Whether you’re looking to support mobile, desktop, or in-store experiences, our solutions ensure a consistent and engaging merchandising strategy across all touchpoints. This holistic approach builds a seamless customer journey and enhances brand loyalty.
- Ongoing Support and Consultation: Our commitment doesn’t end once your platform is live. We provide continuous support and strategic consultation to adapt your merchandising efforts to evolving market trends and customer behaviors.
Merchandising your site is key to eCommerce success
In today’s competitive digital landscape, effective merchandising is no longer optional; it’s essential. From creating a captivating homepage to dynamically scheduling promotional content, every aspect of merchandising contributes to a smoother, more engaging shopping experience.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers the robust tools necessary for modern merchandising, enabling you to deliver personalized and impactful content effortlessly. Ready to take your eCommerce site to the next level? With Salesforce Commerce Cloud and a trusted partner like Ranosys, you’re set for success.
