Retail surgery: How can I streamline my branding, store design and merchandising?

Giving the shopper a positive brand experience in-store or online is an essential part of succeeding in a multichannel environment, says Colin Liversedge, managing director of visual merchandising software supplier vrSoftware. He adds brand ethos should be embedded at every stage of the merchandise life-cycle.

“Historic working practices have been built around delivering two or four seasons a year,” says Liversedge. “The result is a slow, disjointed process and operational silos, where tasks are repeated several times.”

Visual merchandising software can help improve merchandising processes, with some programmes using 3D graphics to model stores and space analysis, helping designers and merchandisers deliver a consistent vision.

Liversedge says that this way everyone can see the big picture from the shopfloor up, enabling them to see how customers view the brand, adding that the merchandise and its presentation, either online or in-store, represent a large part of the retail brand for the shopper.

He says George Davies, founder of Next and George at Asda, shows why it’s a good idea for retailers to start on the shopfloor.

“When building a range, Davies starts on the shopfloor with customer proposition in mind, achieves the right colour balance and builds the fashion statements around that vision,” says Liversedge.

By collecting all of the product designs in one centralised database and providing tools that make it easy to visualise collections on storyboards or in a virtual store, the whole team can collaborate and build a joined-up brand experience.