5 Aspects to Consider for Successful Fashion Merchandising

Fashion merchandising is a global career path that requires the professional to plan and promote the clothes and accessories created by the brand in time to the right target audience. It involves working seamlessly with the advertising team to come up with the right promotions and using attractive displays in the retail chain stores. Thus, having a fashion merchandising degree paves the way for a smooth career path in this field. 

The stock planning and forecasting of seasonal trends is the job of a successful fashion merchandiser. A natural ability to pick up the right trends and collaborate with multiple teams and target audiences is imperative to this role.

The visual merchandising team designs the store’s layout, using the mannequins to display the latest trends. The fashion merchandising team is involved in the apparel and accessory manufacturing process and the supply chain. With the increased demand for online fashion shopping, fashion merchandisers play a crucial role in interacting with fashion designers to develop trendy yet affordable garments. Still, they are also crucial to the teams who manage the online portals of the fashion brands.

If you want to be a successful fashion merchandiser, you should always find ways to increase the sales figures for your fashion brand. With an appropriate educational background, by enrolling for a fashion merchandising degree, life will be a lot easier for you. 

Here are some important tips and tricks that you can consider if you want to see your company’s balance sheet show an upward moving trend.

1. The decompression zone

When a potential customer enters the store, the first space that greets them is the decompression zone. If the potential customer feels comfortable in that zone, they will decide to explore further. Hence the aesthetics and visual display in this area are critical. If yours is a boutique store, you may have fashion experts offering the potential customer a drink and knowing about their requirements after taking away their coats and bags.

Unlike grocery shopping, fashion shopping is not a routine activity. The fashion merchant needs to ensure that the store’s first impression is inviting and smells of uniqueness, but not extremely expensive. Keep this area uncluttered, and display your best yet affordable items there. A good fashion merchandiser should change the display once in three weeks to ensure that the fashion shoppers are not bored with the look.

While you study fashion merchandising in a reputed institute, you will learn how to create a perfect decompression zone for your store. A fashion merchandising degree will be your compass here. 

2. Let the colors do the talking

Colors play a huge role in setting up the mood for the purchaser. If it is a festive time, it will be a great idea to pick up bright colors like maroon or bottle green to set the mood. During the Christmas season, shoppers are attracted to red, green, and white. So keep the central theme around the mood of the season.

You can run your themes if you launch a new line of clothes or accessories, like “Power of Polka dots” or “Dress like an Egyptian”. Along with your creativity, a professional fashion merchandising degree will help you understand how best to execute trends and themes in this section. 

Ensure that your entire store has the same theme décor as the one displayed in the decompression zone. You may have sections for different tastes like fashion for the working woman, the casual dressing section, and men’s blazers and ties. However, the display and the entire look should not go off-beat.

Create an easy-to-navigate-through customer path with proper signs displayed in the store area.

3. Merchandising principles

Any fashionista would love the aesthetic appeal of the store and get into an impulsive shopping spree if the mood is set right.

• Cross-merchandising: In a liquor store, chips, soda, and other finger foods are kept on the display to remind the customer to buy them along with the main product. Similarly, keeping matching shoes, bags, and other accessories along with the dress will be a great idea to increase your sales. Many customers love to buy the ‘entire look’ instead of buying individual items and then running around for matching accessories.

• Consider seasonality: Always keep the season and regional festivals in mind while displaying your merchandise. For example, during the T20 season, displaying T-shirts, mugs, caps of the cricket teams will ensure that your sales figures increase.

During the National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl season in the US in February, any fashion store which does not store related merchandise will lose out on major sales opportunities.

You can learn about these merchandising principles in a reputed fashion institute. Learning about these principles in a professional environment and acquiring a fashion merchandising degree is the need of the hour. 

4. Create a multi-sensory experience 

A fabulous fashion retail therapy experience will bring the customer back to the store and ensure that they sign up for the membership programs. Stores like Shoppers’ Stop or Westside in India, or the stores like Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret in the US focus on these aspects. Pursuing a fashion merchandising degree at an esteemed institute will help you instinctively understand how to create such an experience later in your career. 

• Visual: The fashion connoisseurs are most attracted to an array of fashion apparel and merchandise visually appealing and aesthetically arranged. Ensure that your visual patterns across the store follow a rhythm, and the pattern appeals to the shoppers.
  
• Smell: The next appeal which the fashion experts remember is the aroma of the place. When it comes to hotels and restaurants, patrons return to the same place to be reminded of something soothing and attractive.

In a clothing brand store, the fragrance must match the zone. A strong musk or cologne smell might be best-suited in the men’s clothing section, while aqua, fruity, or floral might be more appealing in the women’s clothing section.

• Touch: There is always a kinesthetic appeal that a fashion lover will remember. The touch and feel of the apparel displayed will bind them to take pictures of the store and post on their respective social media accounts, attracting more customers to the store.
  
• Try-on: The fashion merchandiser should ensure that the trial rooms are close to the most popular collections and several are available during a busy season. Many retail stores lose business to other stores because the buyer didn’t get an opportunity to try out the outfit before buying.

5. Know your market

The best apparel merchandising strategies are developed over the years. A good brand pays attention both to online and offline customers, and their tastes play a huge role in deciding your success. Over time, each brand creates a loyal group of customers who like the fashion sense of that particular brand as it matches theirs.

• Study your key demographics: If you are a global brand in many countries, you need to study the local demographics. For example, in Islamic countries, women need to follow certain rules of dressing, and a sleeveless dress that might have become a rage in the US might fall flat in such countries.

Swimwear sellers have come up with something called burkini (burkha+bikini) for the swimmers in Islamic countries, which has become a successful fashion staple.

• Monitor trends: A good fashion merchandiser needs to keep in mind the global trends and local trends when developing a collection. In any metropolitan city globally, citizens usually wear the local style but switch to international trends when in a conference or attending to global clients.

Conclusion

The job of a fashion merchandiser may appear very lucrative and full of fun. However, the pressure of the job is to be considered; the success of the fashion brand heavily depends on this team. With a dependable sourcing partner like Fashinza by your side, you can focus on your core competence. We will help you with everything else, from design to delivery of the merchandise to your retail stores across the country. Happy holidays!