One Door Survey Uncovers 5 Key Gaps Limiting Visual Merchandising Confidence
A new survey report highlights the impact digital transformation has on visual merchandising and space planning
BOSTON – (May 16, 2019) – One Door, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based visual merchandising software, released Wednesday the results of its third annual visual merchandising survey, “Digital Transformation in Visual Merchandising and Space Planning – Job Done?”
Conducted in partnership with Researchscape, a third-party research firm, the survey reveals important gaps in how retail merchandising strategies are communicated, executed, and confirmed.
In the 2019 Visual Merchandising Survey, One Door sought to understand how prepared retailers are to increase agility and support localization in their visual merchandising and space planning, as well as assess the extent to which they have digitally transformed their visual merchandising processes.
One Door surveyed nearly 300 in-store operations leaders, visual merchandisers, and space planners, of which 41 percent came from retailers with 3,000 or more stores.
According to the survey, the five key gaps limiting merchandising confidence and precision are as follows:
- Planograms don’t match store footprints. Forty-eight percent of retailers report that planograms do not match fixture sizes, and 43 percent report that planograms do not match store format.
- Planogramming processes are not localized or store-specific. Only twenty-eight percent of visual merchandisers create planograms for each specific store.
- Plans are still printed and shipped, with 63 percent of visual merchandisers stating that their planogram materials are delivered this way.
- More than half of store teams receive generic information irrelevant to their stores, with 56 percent of respondents stating they must identify the information relevant to their own store.
- There is no formal approach to capturing store compliance or feedback. Only 15 percent of respondents use a digital app to communicate compliance or raise concerns, whereas 77 percent send feedback through email.
“Retailers today are expected to deliver new and customized experiences for consumers, tailored to each store location, at a pace that is unprecedented,” said E.Y. Snowden, former president and CEO of One Door.
“Our survey shows that many retailers have yet to arm their employees with the digital tools necessary to meet these expectations and that many gaps exist in their overall merchandising processes. We hope that by identifying these gaps, retailers will better understand where to invest to truly transform their businesses.”