MERCHANDISINGBEST PRACTICES

  • Major remerchandising projects (i.e., a project that affects more than 8 feet of space) must have the approval of the Senior Manager and have input from the corporate merchandising staff.
  • Unless there is a meaningful change in the assortment, seasonal resets are excluded from this approval process.
  • Locations of any merchandise should not be changed without the approval of a Store Manager or Department Head.
  • All departments should be maintained, inventoried and stocked appropriately.

MERCHANDISING STANDARDS

The following are excerpts from the merchandising seminar outlining the best practices for merchandising different areas in the store:

Pegged Item Technique

  1. Clean fixtures and make any needed repairs
  2. Sort the merchandise into like items/sizes
  3. Start at the top and work your way down
  4. Peg alike products together
  5. Hang one sku per peg
  6. Acquire spacings, facings, and fullness
  7. Back up, view from a distance. Then make adjustments
  8. Fill in

Pegged Item Standards

•Additional facings should be aligned vertically

•Use same length pegs in a run

•Keep merchandise fronted

•Use bin labels on every peg: bin labels or sku labels

•The less visible pegboard, the better

•Common items (e.g., drill bits) should be grouped together in square or rectangular groupings with an imaginary “picture frame” around each grouping

Shelved Item Technique

  1. Clean the fixtures and make any needed repairs
  2. Sort the merchandise
  3. Start at the bottom and work your way up
  4. Shelve like items vertically (i.e. same type of product)
  5. Use minimum number of products to lay out section
  6. Acquire spacings, facings, and fullness
  7. Back up, view from a distance, make any adjustments
  8. Fill in

Shelved Item Standards

•Additional facings should be side by side

•Use same depth shelves in a run

•Keep merchandise fronted

•The less visible pegboard/gaps, the better

•Don’t break in the middle of a run. (Don’t put a pegged section in the middle of a shelving run and vice-versa)

Promotional Displays

•Common characteristics of all promotional display methods:

–Proper Signage

–Correct Pricing clearly displayed

–Regularly Maintained

End Caps/Feature Ends:

•End caps are best suited for Ace Reward items, Best Buys, new, promotional and seasonal items

•End caps are proven to stimulate sales of items, even if they are not “on sale”

•End caps are exposed to the highest customer traffic

•End caps should be one item or one price whenever possible

End cap resources:

The best place to find end cap suggestions, plan-o-grams, and suggested add-ons (including clip strips, j-hooks, and sidekicks) is the Monthly Promotions Guide.