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Will Lynch

One of the most overlooked elements of any online store is visual merchandising. By merchandising your store, you can determine how items are being sorted and displayed at the search and category page level. As a luxury brand, this is the easiest and most efficient way to optimize your product arrangement and create a curated look and feel on your site. 
Here are some key factors to keep in mind when merchandising your store:
 
<h2>1. Merchandise before products go live</h2>
 
Want to get your customers excited for new products? Start promoting and merchandising them before they’re even available for purchase. Allow shoppers to subscribe to be notified when the items go live, or pre-empt sales with the option to pre-order. This will turn window shoppers into repeat visitors, and buyers once their desired items become available.
 
<h2>2. Seasonality</h2>
 
As winter approaches, shoppers are already eyeing the trends of the season. You should start promoting your winter line or highlighting existing items that pair well with the changing season in advance. Is the trending color “oxblood”? Highlight those deep red/maroon products in your results or on your category pages and pair them with other seasonally relevant items. Once your products come into season, it’s important to boost and promote them throughout your site.
 
<h2>3. Boosting the right products</h2>
 
What products do you want your customers to see first on your search and category pages? Setting boost rules on your pages elevates products with certain attributes to the top of the results. But which attributes are most valuable to your customers? Here are some trends we’ve noticed below:
 
<h3>Stock status</h3>
 
It’s fairly common that a store would demote products that are out of stock. However, many retailers overlook the positioning of products that are only in stock in limited sizes. By setting rules to boost items that have at least 50% of sizes available, for example, retailers can avoid shopper frustration as they click through multiple results that appear to be fully in stock, but only offer XXS options. 
 
<h3>Newness</h3>
 
A product's newness on a site is another common reason to boost. That being said, every store has a different threshold for when newness is relevant. Typically, an item published within a 30 day timeline (or even 60 days) might be promoted based on its newness. Following that period, items can be categorised by a different means, such as popularity.
A great example of this can be seen with one of Searchspring’s amazing customers, <a href="https://www.alexandani.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ALEX AND ANI</a>. For their ‘Beaded + Stretch Bracelets’ category page, they have created a rule to boost the newest items to the top of the page.
 <img src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1472/1782/files/searchspring_2_600x600.png?v=1605543387" alt="">
 
<h3>Grouping similar products</h3>
 
Grouping products together on a category page can happen in two ways - both are equally effective, but can create different desired outcomes. The first is to group items by type (all pants will be displayed alongside each other). With the second option, the goal is to “complete the look”. Try grouping items that go together to inspire shoppers with complete outfits (displaying pants next to a shirt and shoes for example).
 
<img src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1472/1782/files/searchspring_3_600x600.png?v=1605543426" alt=""> 
 
<h3>Exploding variants</h3>
 
Shopify customers can experience the added advantage of exploding variants of a product. This allows you to display an item in a different colour or style as a series of separate items as opposed to one item that you have to click on to see the different styles. 
 
<img src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1472/1782/files/searchspring_4_600x600.png?v=1605543443" alt="">
 
In summary, these capabilities are only a few of the many ways Searchspring gives our merchants merchandising superpowers. To learn more about how you can fully optimize your online store, feel free to reach out to <a href="mailto:partners@searchspring.com" tartget="_blank">partners@searchspring.com</a>.

5 of the most important visual merchandising tactics for luxury brands