In the scope of running a product based business, the merchandising of your website is a critical part of your success but is often the most overlooked task on a business owner’s to do list.
Your website should be designed to tell your story and deliver a compelling product experience and collection point of view through simple, intuitive category navigation and clear, accurate product details. Large retailers often hire Ecommerce Merchandising Managers to ensure that their websites are consistent with the company’s business goals and are delivering a best in class customer experience. As a small business wearing most (if not all) the hats this is something that now falls onto your to do list. Read on to learn how to DIY your own ecommerce audit and merchandise your website.
I’ve also created some options to help you with this tremendous task. Head to our shop to learn more about our 12 month merchandising strategy workbook and 1:1 Merchandising Support if you’d like some additional help and guidance.
Why is a Merchandising Review of your website Important?
The purpose of your merchandising audit is make sure your online shop is performing well for your business. Over time, our product based business will go through lots of tweaks and adjustments so it is important to periodically review your website to ensure it is reflective of all your new products, pricing and assortment changes that come with your growth. Making the habit of reviewing your website on a monthly basis will save you time and money in the long run.
Strong website merchandising will drive brand awareness and engagement, increase sales + AOV and keep your customers coming back. Your goal is to drive revenue and having a thoughtfully merchandising site will make achieving this goal easier.
FRONT END REVIEW-Start with your Homepage:
A majority of your customers will start on your homepage when visiting your website. When customers land on your website they should know exactly where they are and how to find important information about your business. Your homepage should include information about who you are, what types of products you sell, why customers should shop with you. As you’re doing your merchandising review, look at your site through the eyes of a customer who is visiting your shop for the first time and answer these questions:
Is your shop + brand easily identifiable? (meaning, will they know they are in the right place immediately or will they think they ended up somewhere else by accident?)
Does your navigation do its job? Your customer should easily find key information including your Shop, About and Contact pages.
Are your social profiles visible and linked? Social proof is a major influence in purchasing decisions and leveraging platforms like instagram and facebook to connect with customers is a must. Even if you’re just getting started and only have a handful of followers linking your Instagram account to your homepage can help boost your brands know, like and trust factor.
Is your website loading quickly? Check speed on all devices but mobile especially. Slow websites lose customers! If your website is slow, check your image size. It should be optimized
How are you merchandising your website?
Homepage Merchandising-what products/collections are you highlighting? Does it coincide with your social media/email strategy? Are you focusing on best sellers? What is your strategy here? If you’ve been using the same image since your online store launched you are probably neglecting your homepage. This space should be used to showcase your products and promotions. For instance, if you’ve just posted a product on your social channels it should also be front and center on your website so your customers don’t have to dig to find it. If you’ve emailed your list about a sale, the sale should be easy to find when your customers visit your website.
Collection Based Merchandising-creating collections makes shopping your website easier. For example, a jewelry store’s website will group products into collections like earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and rings. By presenting their products in collections it becomes easier to target a variety of customers by using specific search terms. It also helps customers navigate your online store easily, ensuring they find what they want fast.
Product Ranking within Collections-When customers visit a collection page, what are the first product they see? Best Sellers? New additions? You will want to consistently look at your product rankings and make adjustments based on the promotions you’re running and inventory positions. Nobody wants to land on a page and see the first few rows of products are not available!
Individual Product Merchandising-Customers expect to see basic information for each product when they are browsing your collections. 1) A Product Image (on a clean background is best) 2) The Product Name 3) The Product Price. If you are sharing more than the basics consider cleaning up your listing and moving the additional info you have listed to the products’ detail page.
Product Page Merchandising:
Your product pages are where your customer decides to add your product to their cart. For each product you should be reviewing:
Product Imagery-is it cohesive across and representative of your brand? Is it up to date for all products? How many images do you have per product? Are the images you are using highlighting your products in the best way possible?
Product Descriptions-Are your product descriptions are working for you. Do they accurately describe the product? Are they SEO friendly?
Product Page URL-Are your product’s URLs correct and SEO friendly? If you’re on a host like Shopify where you can copy a product listing take a look at each product’s url. If you haven’t manually adjusted the SEO you may accidentally end up with something like “copy-of-gold-necklace” in the url for your product listing of a pair of earrings.
BACK END REVIEW:
Once you’ve completed the customer facing review of your ecommerce shop you’ll need to spend time on the back end of your website reviewing every product to ensure
Product tags are accurate (what terms is your customer using to find each product?)
Product descriptions are up to date
Pricing is accurate-in addition to making sure retails are correct, check to see if your host provider offers a place to input costing information. This added feature can be tedious but will allow you to use your host’s dashboard to run reports and you want that info to be as accurate as possible.
Links are working and nothing is broken
Inventory counts are correct (if you have 5 units on hand but your website only shows 2 in stock you could miss an opportunity to sell!)
Shipping information is up to date-correct product weights and dimensions are important in order to calculate shipping costs correctly. If you’ve updated packaging or made any adjustments update your product listing to reflect the changes.
If you’d like help with your merchandising strategy for your online store we’ve developed a 12 Month Merchandising Strategy workbook that will help make merchandising your website SO.MUCH.EASIER. We’ve also added a One on One Site Merchandising review that is great for any business who could benefit from customized support.