What’s Your Merchandising Vision

What do companies like L.L. Bean, Coldwater Creek, Lands’ End, J. Jill, Victoria’s Secret, Williams-Sonoma, Ross-Simons, Pottery Barn, The Sharper Image, Cabela’s and Frontgate have in common? They all have a clear merchandise vision, says Chuck Howard, president of Howard Consulting, a Rockville, MD-based catalog consulting firm.

“A merchandising vision is simply an understanding of the customer and his or her lifestyle,” he explains. But, according to Howard, it is one of the most difficult topics for catalogers to grasp.

Most don’t truly understand the importance of merchandising, he laments. While numbers are the foundation of good merchandise planning, a lot of people can be led astray by them, he explains. “No great catalog merchant should be totally reliant upon the numbers. Just because you could be selling something doesn’t mean you should be,” he asserts. “The danger is that the book doesn’t stand for anything.”

That’s why having a merchandise vision of who you are and what you’re bringing to your customers is so important. Consider the following example: In apparel, special occasion dressing is a category that any of the major apparel companies could do well at on the front end, Howard suggests. “It looks good on the page and there’s a high gross demand,” he says.

But returns can be very high in this category — sometimes more than 60 percent, he notes. So before adding this product to your catalog, the questions to ask are, is it sustainable and will it add to your business long term. If not, don’t add it. Howard asserts: “Lands’ End could sell special occasion dresses if it wanted to. This doesn’t mean it should.”

As he notes, to be a successful catalog merchant, answer two questions: Which products in which categories are driving the business? And what’s the contribution of those products? “Successful catalog merchants have an assortment of products that work,” says Howard.

Another way to look at maintaining your merchandise positioning is to ensure that each product earns its way into your catalog before you add it to the lineup, says Andrea Syverson, president of IER Partners, a catalog consulting firm in Black Forest, CO. Before a customer understands and/or believes in your merchandise concept, you as the merchant must ask, “What’s in it for me?” That is, what’s in it for your brand by placing this product in your catalog? And equally important, what’s in it for your customers?

Syverson says your answers will help properly position each product within the context of your overall merchandising concept. If you’re struggling with those answers, she recommends you drop the product.

Why so harsh? “Every product that doesn’t enhance the brand message detracts from it, while every product offered that doesn’t provide real solutions to a customer’s needs is a waste of your customer’s most precious resource: time,” says Syverson.

For an illustration of just what is a merchandising vision, let’s look at two catalogs these consultants say are among the best at creating and sticking to their products’ positioning.

Merchandising Vision: “A Casual Lifestyle”

Chuck Howard points to Crow’s Nest Trading Co. as a catalog that hits creative home runs. It’s a home catalog that caters to a relaxed lifestyle — “and that comes through in its products and in its catalog’s pages,” he says.

Cary Tennis, executive vice president, director of merchandising, for Crow’s Nest, says merchandise positioning means “having a consistent product line with a ‘look’ that differentiates you from other catalogs and appeals to a distinct socio-economic group with strong similarities in lifestyle and interests.”

The first step to establishing a merchandising vision is knowing your target customer, says Tennis. “Who is going to buy your products? What do they do for leisure? Where do they travel? What are their demographics?

“We’ve learned to visualize our customer and his primary or secondary home,” she notes. “And that keeps us focused when we go into the marketplace to source new products.”

The age range of Crow’s Nest Trading Co.’s typical customer is 40 to 65; they’re mostly professionals; and their median household income is about $70,000.

“From conversations with our customers, we know that quite often our merchandise is going to furnish a second home. We’ve got an upscale customer that enjoys a casual lifestyle,” she continues. “A lot of people are putting these products in their lake house or mountain cabin. … Our position is to offer these people a source of exciting home décor, furniture and other high-quality merchandise that can’t readily be found in a retail store or in other catalogs.”

For the 10-year-old catalog it’s an ongoing challenge to find new and unique products, says Tennis. “We’re gradually adding pages to our catalog as we expand merchandise offerings, and will mail a 76-page catalog in July. The numbers play a primary role in making merchandising decisions and determining when additional pages are justified or what categories to expand.”

Merchandising Vision: “Moms Creating Memories”

Syverson says she commends the folks at Gooseberry Patch for being experts in creating truly unique merchandising. Just look at the array of kitchen gadgets, home decorative items and even baking mixes, she notes.

Liz Plotnick-Snay is COO at Gooseberry Patch, and part of the team at the company that does merchandising for the catalog. She says Gooseberry Patch’s merchandise vision is to “try to bring its customers products they want for their homes or kitchens that bring back memories or create new memories — and to do so at affordable prices.”

The catalog’s merchandise has evolved over the years as a result of listening to its customers. “Jo Ann (Martin) and Vickie (Hutchins) started the catalog out of their own passion for antiques, but that’s not our focus today,” says Plotnick-Snay.

Early on, she recalls, “More of the lower-end, smaller pieces were selling for Gooseberry Patch, so that’s what we expanded into.” For new catalogs, or catalogs that are growing their merchandising, she says, it’s especially important to watch what sells and listen to customers. “It’s a careful balancing act. You want to stick with your vision but also listen to the numbers and the customers. Every time you put a catalog out there, you’re asking customers what they want.”

In addition to looking at sales figures, Gooseberry Patch checks its Web board for customers’ messages and reviews catalog customer comments. Direct customer input like that was responsible for some of the company’s best proprietary product ideas — including Jo Ann and Vickie’s successful cookbook line.

10 Ways to Maximize Your Merchandising Vision

1. Develop themes and groups of products that will be displayed together in the catalog. At Crow’s Nest Trading, Cary Tennis says, “We like to present lifestyle spreads to give customers ideas for decorating their homes to include everything from rugs to furniture, lamps to tabletop accessories. For us, it’s about creating ambience.”

The cataloger finds most of her larger orders have at least two items from the same spread, so it stands to reason that people are using these for ideas and buying more than one item, thus increasing the average sale.

Syverson agrees with the idea of grouping collections of products in innovative and interesting ways. It’s a strategy for spreads that not only allows creative freedom for the design team but also provides interest and appeal for your customers. “Themes help reinforce both your brand and merchandise concept,” she says.

2. To write good copy, know your customers. Doug Tennis, president at Crow’s Nest, writes a lot of the catalog copy himself.

Says Cary Tennis: “With copy, we try to really know our customers and speak their language. And a lot of people comment that they love to read our book! Oftentimes, [Doug] likes to use a sense of humor to relate to customers.”

For example, take the Frontier Soap description:

• All you cowpokes out there; listen up. You may work like a horse, but there is no need in smelling like one. …

3. Keep your core products. “We don’t add much ‘out of the box’ product,” Cary Tennis says of Crow’s Nest’s product selection. However, several years ago the catalog did a few spreads encompassing golf merchandise.

“We figured our customers have the income, the age and the lifestyle, so we put together some golfing gifts and accessories. The collection didn’t do badly, but we decided it didn’t perpetuate our core business, and may not result in repeat buyers. That’s not to say we don’t experiment from time to time, but we’re careful to be sure any new categories complement our overall lodge theme.”

4. Create a mood. At Goose-berry Patch, Plotnick-Snay says, “We try to create a feeling on every page. We watercolor each product image [instead of using photography], which creates a certain sense visually within the catalog. Internally we sometimes give each product grouping a headline like ‘Grandma’s Kitchen’ or ‘Retro Harvest.’ Sometimes that’s carried over into the actual catalog, sometimes it’s not. But it helps us have an image in our minds as we’re writing and designing for that group of products.”

5. Find the right mix of price points within each category. Says consultant Chuck Howard: “Pricing is not the key; it is only one factor. But if you have only $300 items, you’re not going to have growth.”

6. Focus on covers. Says Plotnick-Snay, “We only have, on average, 1.6 seconds to get a catalog recipient to open our catalog, so the cover had better be appealing and compelling.”

Tennis adds, “We want our cover to effectively represent the product line as a whole.”

7. Observe the standard pitfalls. “I’ve found few catalogers can afford to repeat more than a third of their products per catalog,” says Howard. “Traditionally, you need at least 50-percent new products in order to go back to the same universe of names the next season and expect similar response rates,” he adds.

According to Howard, “All too few catalogers get it. They continue to repeat losers, and it’s a debilitating and costly mistake.”

8. Deliver what you promise. Says Cary Tennis, “Our goal is to give customers care that’s equal both to the high quality of our merchandise and the high expectations of our sophisticated buyers. We think it’s as important for customers to have a positive customer-service experience as it is for them to receive high-quality merchandise. And that’s an ongoing challenge for us as many of our pieces are drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer.”

9. Use graphic aids to help the reader shop. Gooseberry Patch uses a lot of call-outs on its catalog pages for this purpose. “A big yellow gold star, for instance, is used to help point out items specially selected by Jo Ann and Vickie,” says Plotnick-Snay.

10. Present your products in unexpected ways that play to your brand’s personality. “Customers are bored, tired and pressed for time. Wake them up visually,” says Syverson. When you’re thinking of new designs, ask yourself: What’s your brand personality? Take a look through your catalog: Is your brand personality evident in your products and on the catalog’s pages? If not, you’ve got something to work on.