Customers like to have options. Offering an attractive bouquet of options to choose from is essential in retail. Assortment planning is the process of intelligently selecting the right products to put on your digital shelf.
ContentsBuild on the basicsMonitor and adjustStrengthen your imageGet in tune with marketingAnticipate demandRespond to trendsIn a market where the competitor is just a click away, you need to offer enough variety to retain the customer. Offering too many goods increases the cost of carrying inventory. Too few options supported the experience of customers looking for variety. Being presented with too many similar choices can also confuse the customer.
How much is too much? How does a retailer get the right assortment of goods or services? Read on to find out more.
It is disconcerting for a regular customer to visit your store for a basic product and find it out of stock. Identify essential items in your product line that will likely always be in demand. Your product assortment should be built on a good selection of basic products. This makes your store appealing to shoppers who follow trends as well as those who keep coming back for the basics. Returning buyers will also be more likely to choose a newer product from the store because they trust the seller. Highlighting both the basics and the trends encourages the customer to make impulse purchases.
Assortment planning is not a one-time decision that is set in stone, it is an ongoing exercise. Retail solutions inform you of sales trends in real time. Analyze this data and fill your shelves with the best performing items. Analytics tools are especially useful when they promote flexibility in inventory storage. Use the data to identify gaps in your product listing and fix them. This may mean making changes to planned decisions, but helps you ride the wave of market trends as they happen.
When the inventory optimization process is continuous and responsive to real-time data, you become highly competitive. If a particular item or brand continues to sell, that's a clue to expand your offering of that item or brand. If all variations of a particular item sell, you can experiment by stocking more variations of the same item.
One of the key aspects of assortment planning is keeping the product selection aligned with the brand image. Think about what your brand is known and recognized for and build on it. If you're known for stocking up on the latest trends, don't play it safe and stick to the basics. It’s too easy to get carried away with reacting to customer trends and lose focus on company goals and image. Use the real-time data you get from retail solutions to adjust your offers as part of your brand strategy. But sometimes it pays to also take data-backed risks to step out of your comfort zone and attract new buyers.
Select products that live up to the claims you make in marketing campaigns. You can also let your marketing campaign ideas be dictated by your product assortment strategy. It would be disconcerting for a buyer who has seen premium product listings to be offered mid-range products. Assortment planning and marketing must be synchronized to achieve maximum results.
Customer expectations are high all year round and it is important to constantly meet them to build customer loyalty. Some buying trends are very localized to time of year or geography. Plan your product assortment with trend awareness. You should also change your stock to reflect demands during particular seasons and events. For example, during pandemic shutdowns, there was an increase in orders for items that were meant to work from home.
Social media has immense value and opportunities for creating and evaluating trends. Certain styles or products become very popular in response to recommendations from influencers or celebrities. Retailers who respond quickly to these trends are grabbing shoppers' attention. For example, Bernie Sanders was photographed wearing a pair of mittens during Joe Biden's inauguration. Her image went viral and demand for similar mittens grew. Responding knitwear designers and retailers had the right product offerings at the right time. They might also have gained organic exposure to new customers.
Choosing an assortment of products is no longer a random bet. Intelligence Node helps you make the right decisions based on real-time solid data. We help you optimize your inventory and stay ahead of the competition with science-based assortment intelligence.
