Most merchandisers follow a “Reactive” approach. You are influenced by the buying team, marketing promotions, email marketing and the Year-over-Year report.
These decisions are made based on data and gut instinct. Other teams may have provided reports that don’t influence the website.
Imagine that you have a storefront, and you interview not only people at the check-out counter but also everyone who leaves the store. You ask them: “What could we do differently for you?” and “Was finding what you wanted easy?”. This information will allow you to be a more “Proactive” rather than “Reactive”, merchandiser.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could provide feedback to marketing and buying teams about what products they should promote, or what type of products sell best based on actual customer data?
Prioritize Your Top Opportunities
- You can look for big wins. Can you sort New Arrivals and Best Sellers at the top?
- Do your data tools recommend that you boost or bury certain products in your seasonal category page.
Begin by taking simple steps to collect and track data to support your decisions.
You should start relying more on data as well as intuition
Why not use data to prove that you’re gut instinct is right?
You can use this to explain to others why you think your decision is the best way to have an impact.
Prioritize Your Week The Same Way Every Week
You can use data to help you better answer questions from your team.
- Where is this product the most popular?
- What landing pages generate the most sales for your business?
- What are the best-selling products in a particular category?
A set of data you can track each week will help to set your priorities, set targets, provide data-driven responses that influence departments’ strategies, and demonstrate the impact of merchandising over time.
Prioritize Your Tasks And Be Proactive
Don’t react to what other people tell you about how to organize your week. Instead, get ahead of the game by making data-driven suggestions and being proactive.
Tell them why and what your priorities are.
Solidify Your Process
Instead of interrupting the day with reports or new steps, start incorporating data into your daily workflow. Consider the customer’s site behavior a priority, and use it to inform your immediate action plan.
These tips can help you to become more cross-functional, and assist other teams who have an impact on each other.
By analyzing data, you can also put yourself in the shoes of your customers by following their purchasing behavior. This will lead to a deeper understanding of customer needs.
As ecommerce gains more retail share, merchandisers are increasingly responsible for the success of their products.
You can control the site and are asked to provide data that will support gut decisions. You can’t know everything about every product and category on your website, so let machine learning do the heavy lifting while you use your creative instinct to tell the story.
The machine cannot tell you the entire customer journey but will guide you in telling the most relevant stories along the way.
