Unexpected way(s) of working

Rag & Bone Cashmere and Wool-Blend Cardigan £330, Hoss Intropia Zebra Brooch £41, Bunney Silver Initial Brooch £195, H&M Short Cardigan £9.99, Uniqlo +J Stretch Cashmere Cardigan £129, Marni Brooch £180, Cilea Brooch at V&A £85, Mango Cotton Cardigan £29.99

I’ve been working with a couple of different strategies when I've been merchandising recently. I had expected to use one, namely figures. I thought it would be a matter of identifying the best products – from the point of view of sales, or profit, or clicks, or any other criterion – and placing them in prominent positions.
However, most pages, I am finding, require a secondary strategy, or logic. It’s like structuring an argument, or an essay, or an article (I think it could be most like constructing an article). You might want to put all your winning ideas at the very beginning, but you have to order them, group them, link them, set each one to its best advantage.
It is necessary to adopt a subsidiary strategy: to use style to determine position, as well as sales, for example; or to consider colour, or function, or price. If I were working on a jewellery page, I might rank my products according to the number of clicks they received, then I might place the top three necklaces on the first row, the top three bracelets on the second, the top three earrings on the third, etc. 
I think the order the functions come in (necklace, then bracelet, then earrings) should be determined by individual product clicks (i.e. if the product to receive the most clicks were a necklace, it should lead and two other necklaces should follow it; if the product to receive the second most clicks were a bracelet, it would then come fourth), rather than overall function clicks (i.e. if bracelets receive the most clicks overall, they would lead). If you don’t heed the individual, you might end up with your best products some distance down the page, if for instance you have one or two very strong necklaces and lots of mediocre bracelets.

Now, I think I am feeling the need to use several strategies because it makes the page easier to understand and more convincing. You might have exactly what the customer wants, it might be at the top of the page, but if it is surrounded by dissimilar products, by products the customer doesn’t want at all, it is easily missed. Using several strategies allows you to break your page into sections, so that the customer can see the extent of your range, discard the parts that are not of interest, and focus on the parts that are. A multi-strategy approach improves the page aesthetic, something that must not be underestimated.

So, from now, on I’ll be seeing more in my products than just their figures!

And fresh p-p-pages

Muuto (at nest.co.uk) Wood Table Lamp £135, Hay (at nest) Colour Domino Set £39, French Connection Tray Coffee Table £190, Next Bamboo Vase £25, H&M Wood Tray £14.99

Last week, I started properly merchandising in my new position. 

A small professional re-orientation means I'm now working on e-commerce, so - in some respects - my efforts will effect customers more directly and their efficacy will be more immediately measurable.

I can't expect any really reflective results from the pages I've worked on for four to five weeks. But I've been checking them compulsively over the weekend (nothing should have changed, but I couldn't stop myself!) 
And I'm very excited (and simultaneously a bit anxious) to see initial sales tomorrow.

I'd like to compare sales since to sales before I remerchandised. But I will check sales overall, and sales of similar products, for the same periods - because your figures natually fluctuate.
 I could compare this year's sales before and after my merchandising to last year's sales for the equivalent periods. And I could look at actual and forecasted sales for the days after I merchandised.

This should tell me if its starting off on the right foot anyway. Exciting!

Ch-ch-changes

I haven't posted in a while, but I hope it's with fair reason. I started a new job a couple of weeks ago and have spent almost all my time since immersing myself in the new company and role.

I've had introductions to our various channels and formats and touchpoints. I've spent valuable time with people in functions associated (directly and indirectly) with my own. I've spent valuable time with people in functions completely unrelated to mine too! 

I learnt about our customers, our products, the experiences we offer and how we offer them.

Most of the time, I met with a passion to share knowledge and, in turn, a lively interest in what I was going to be doing. Then, at times, I learnt through mucking in and doing some work myself.

More recently, I've been getting down to the nitty gritty, to
the job I'm here to do. And at this point, I've been benefiting from the experience and generosity of those who've been doing it up until now.

Whenever I've had a spare moment, I've been reading company literature, trawling the website, versing myself in what makes our brand what it is.


I've never experienced such a comprehensive, expansive induction, and I'm so grateful for it. I'm left hoping I've made the most and that I've learnt enough!


So after two great years in my previous job, lots of changes. And lots to write about in the future, I think!


Pic 1 - Mara Hoffmann for Anthropologie Notebook £12, French Connection Wanda CrossBody Bag £85, Clarks Busby Jazz £69.99

Pic 2 - Lamy AL-Star Fountain Pen £23.95, Liberty Blue Edge A5 Notebook £16.95, LK Bennett Leonie Patent-Leather Cluch £185, Apologie Pumps £250 at Shoescribe

Comparative Competitive Shopping 3

Staying with my parents, my choice of retailers for a last post comparing online to in-store shopping experience was a little limited. I planned to do homeware, but there's not much available in the city centre - no Habitat or Heals or Conran store.
So I went for a brand that started out selling cushions, ironing board covers, etc. though it has diversified since. It's known for its prints and is apparently on the point of being sold.

The windows displayed bags, of different prints and styles, in distressed wooden crates. Inside the store, more crates presented homeware - cooking/baking utensils, tea caddies, biscuits and so on. The front left of the store was given over to further homeware, the right was bags and the middle was smaller leather/canvas goods - purses, passport covers, sunglasses cases...
A wall behind a central till unit separated the front from the middle of the shop which was selling children's-ware and stationery, nightware and washbags, and womenswear. Then, there was another wall, behind which were cushions, blankets, bolts of fabric, sewing boxes and wallpaper.
The decor - not what I went in to look at - was quite interesting. If you looked up above the products, there were local postcards, tea towels and samplers; in the kids' section, there were old abaci and alphabet charts. It showed an impressive attention to detail and evinced the traditional but idiosyncratic spirit of the brand. I was impressed.

Above the fold on the website homepage, there was one large image of several bags. As in the store windows, they were a mix of floral, spot and bird prints. They were hanging from some distressed wooden pegs, reminiscent of school pegs, and in the foreground was a Penguin edition of Sterne's A Sentimental Journey. Again, there was something classic but quirky about the book; it might also have been meant to instil wanderlust and a desire for some new luggage.
The images directly under the fold linked to fashion, bags and accessories (purses, etc.); these categories were also the first three on the top navigation bar. So the site seemed to have less of a focus on homeware, and more of a focus on fashion, than the store. All in all though, I would say that merchandise (and brand) was very much aligned in store and online.

So I think this will be the last of my comparative posts. I'm actually about to leave London and start a new job - it'll be a slightly different role, a different industry and a different end of the market.
Therefore, the focus of the blog will be changing slightly - should be interesting though!

Comparative Competitive Shopping 2

Lyon 4 Piece Sofa Set £225, Ray-Ban Matte Blue New Wayfarers £125, Navy Canvas Slip-On £20, Tipped Polo Shirt £16, Chino Shorts £16, Miami Chair £65, Delicate Bracelet Four Pack £8.50, Blue Stripy Sandals £30, Navy Playsuit £22, Fish Stacking Mugs Set of 4 £12, Teal Bubble Wine Glasses set of 4 £16  

So my next exercise in comparing the website and stores of brands took me to a large high-street retailer, one that's apparently doing pretty well at the moment.

The first thing I would say is that the shopping experience in the stores I visited was very different to the experience of shopping their site. I got the impression the site aims to replicate, or at least evoke, their iconic catalogue. So, to some extent, expecting it to resemble a store might not be valid.

Anyway, I visited the shops/website last Friday/Saturday. The homepage was promoting summery products, with a secondary focus on Fathers' Day gifts. There was a great image of a man on a yacht, wearing an ochre-coloured, geometric-print shirt.
When you followed the Fathers' Day link, a page of packshots represented the range of polo shirts, accessories (e.g. leather bags, watches), loungewear (e.g. slippers) grooming (fragrance) and gifts (a brushed-metal hip flash, etc.)
When you followed the link for womenswear for example, you came to a page which presented subcategories, such as casual, tailored and occasion. If you clicked casual, you reached a page of stories - a light, patterned, denimy collection, festival fashion, casual basics, beachwear... Selecting one of these took you to a series of editorial images, so you felt almost as if you were shopping from a magazine or catalogue. It was really enjoyable.

The first store I visited was quite a small one in the city of London. One window displayed the festival fashion story (pink poncho, etc.) and some denim. There was a menswear window too - summery items with a nautical slant, as on their homepage.
In the store, I spotted a chinzy-print prominent in tailoring online and some embroidered items from a middle east story - really nice but not a focus on the web. Some of the rails were marked with Fathers' Day signs, but you didn't have that much of selection of accessories / gifts.
Imagery was present, but it got a little lost among all the merchandise and it wasn't always imagery I'd noticed on the website. Lifestyle seemed to be conveyed and products seemed to be contextualised a lot less.

I also visited a bigger, flagship store. Here, it felt as if you could really take your time and enjoy your shop. There were some pretty stylish mannequins and striking images. I saw a little of the light denimy story that made up the first of the casualwear pages online. There was also a good choice of Fathers' Day fragrances and gifts by the men's tills.

Interestingly, nowhere I went had much of a homewear section - when this is one of the first options on their homepage. 

So online and in-store models differ, obviously, but overall I'd say merchandise and marketing messages were consistent.

The products above caught my eye when I was doing my research. I'm trying to spend as much time outside as possible at the moment (seize the sunshine while you have the opportunity!) These would set you up nicely for lazy day in the garden.

Comparative Competitive Shopping

Antonia's Flowers Floret Eau de Parfum £137, Diptyque Mousse Candle £40, Laure Mercier Creme de Pistache Honey Bath £32, Eve Lom Cleanser from£ 40, Malin + Goetz Sage Styling Cream £16, Kiehl's Creme de Corps from £16, Anthony Logistics Facial Moisturiser SPF 15 £32, Tom Ford for Men Eau de Toilette £48

I was discussing store visits and competitive shops with my manager recently. I do a bit both, but what I probably do most is online retail research. I thought it would be interesting to compare the online store to a bricks and mortar store of a couple of brands, to see how consistently they are merchandised.

First of all, I decided to look at a high-end beauty boutique - you might be able to guess which. At the moment, they have a print-based window scheme, six or seven moisturisers, exfoliators, supplements, etc. artfully arranged on a yellow background. When you enter the store, you see these products and more displayed on an island unit. Perspex blocks reveal that they make up the steps of particular beauty routine. There's some classic product by their bestselling brands, some more niche product, some newness; it's an interesting campaign and it certainly seemed to appeal to customers.

Their homepage featured the same image as the window. Beneath, pack-shots of particular products represented the steps of the beauty regime. When you clicked through, the selection of products was almost exactly the same as in store.

In store, the mens section was mainly Anthony Logistics, Kiehl's and a Malin + Goetz range that lead into the female skincare. The men's part of the website promoted a selection of essential men' products - the above brands were all well represented and their products were prominently positioned.

The in-store home selection was almost entirely Diptyque - candles, diffusers... Online, the 'home page' (not homepage, let us be clear!) was subcategory based, packshots linking to candles, sprays and diffusers, laundry products, hand wash. Diptyque was featured, but the candle subcategory packshot was own-brand. This was interesting as the own-brand candles were in the bath & body section of the website.

The website had a gift section which comprised a lot of sets. The only gift sets visible in store were an Eve Lom and a Malin + Goetz. The main fragrances in store were Diptyque, Acqua di Parma and Tom Ford - both of which were featured online. Serge Lutens and Antonia's Flowers made nice additions.

The most prominent make up brands when you walked into store were By Terry and Eve Lom - through Laura Mercier, Nars, Hourglass... were also present. Eve Lom was surprisingly pretty far down the foundation page of the site, though By Terry and Nars were packshots on the makeup page.

So there you have it, my comp of comp shopping. It's amazing what you can learn from presence and presentation, before you even get to sales figures and stock holding. I impulse purchased a lip liner while I was in store -  the perils of field work! I didn't buy anything while online, though I don't think you should read anything into that!

Hope you've had a great weekend!

Summer IS Coming

Hay Copenhague Barstool (designed by Ronan and Erwan Bourboullec) £206 from Haus, Stelton Cylinda Martini Mixer and Cocktail Shaker £69.95 and £119 from Occa Design, Uniqlo Supima Cotton Sweater £19.90, J.Crew Broken-In Chinos £75, Maison Francis Kurkdjian Zinc Globe Trotter Atomiser €85 (refils for €60) and Acqua Universalis 70ml €110, Acqua di Parma Ginepro di Sardegna 75ml and Deo Spray £54 and £27

So it feels as if I have been setting Seasonal Ideal Stock Levels constantly since the beginning of the year. As I've described before, sales patterns change at Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter and Father's Day, and you need to make sure the stock is in place by using special Seasonal IS levels.

But before July, August and September, I need to review the Standard IS levels. I'm working on this at the moment.

These are generally quite quiet months, with no events (like Valentine's or Mother's Day) to interrupt them. Local customers might go on holiday and be replaced by tourists with different purchasing preferences. And so to realise sales potential, and avoid overstocks, it's necessary to reset your Standard IS levels using last Summer's sales.

To do this, I will calculate the average weekly sales of each product in each store. If a store receives weekly orders and runs on three weeks of stock, I will set their IS level at three times their average weekly sales.

There are special-case products, of course: ones that sell infrequently but of which you need one or two on hand at all times; testers, samples and wrapping (I try to base my samples and testers on sales and my wrapping materials on consumption). But apart from that, it's pretty simple.

September is a small event in my calendar. In France, it's called the Rentrée. It's the time when you get back into everyday life, after your summer break. And some people like to buy themselves something - as a treat after they return to work, or as an inducement to work hard through the autumn/winter, or just because it's a fresh start. So I'll probably check the IS levels against September's sales, come the beginning of August, to make sure the stores won't be short of anything they need.

So this is how my year looks -

January to June - setting of standard IS levels, setting and re-setting of seasonal IS levels to meet the demands of shopping events such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter....

July to September - review of standard IS levels

October to December - setting of seasonal IS levels so that the stores are ready for Christmas.

With Father's Day, the last of my spring events, on the horizon, I decided to post a selection of men's merchandise. Have a great weekend!