Departmental Separation? Visual Merchandising for Genders

• September 12, 2017
• Topics:
  • Visual Merchandising

Men and women shop differently. This is fairly common knowledge. Women, typically, tend to shop more impulsively, whereas men more often head into a store with items in mind. Knowing this, it only makes sense to develop a visual merchandising strategy that targets the specific genders, right? For example, your strategy for the women’s department should differ from that in the men’s department, no? It’s actually far more complex than that.

Far too often we run into the misconception that merchandising strategies for the different departments should be developed based on the end user, i.e. the visual merchandising strategy for the men’s department should be targeted solely to men. Our argument when encountering this approach is “is the end user always the one shopping?” Often no.

Think about it this way: women often shop in the men’s department for their husbands, fathers, sons, etc. Men will do the same. Just as you shouldn’t ignore certain generations in exchange for others, if you’re ignoring these shoppers, you could be losing out on sales.

We came across this interesting article which outlines some great stats on female shoppers, thus demonstrating why gendered marketing has its place: http://she-conomy.com/facts-on-women.

When you’re planning your visual merchandising, it is most effective to think bigger. While you do want to cater your strategy to the different genders, you also want to make sure that you’re not doing so in a way that excludes anyone.

At Marketsupport, we can help you explore the complexities of visual merchandising for genders and develop a plan that hits all the targets. Get in touch with us today by calling 1-877-421-5081.