3 Steps to Freshen Up Your Grocery Merchandising Strategy

New competitors are jumping into the grocery merchandising game all the time. 

Nontraditional retailers, such as Amazon, are expanding their presence in the grocery industry by building brick-and-mortar stores throughout the country, The Wall Street Journal reported. This means merchandisers will have even more opportunities to reach consumers in a fiercely competitive business. 

To maximize market share and revenue, other merchandisers need to make sure their products are appealing to shoppers' eyes and capture the brand's essence to draw consumers in. Although that might seem like a simple goal, it's a much more complex issue for merchandisers, and displaying and packaging products incorrectly can have dire consequences for a brand.

Displaying and packaging products incorrectly can have dire consequences for a brand.

Location, location, location

Getting the right spot for a product display is critical for increasing sales. To successfully do this, brands need to make their products stand out among the sea of competition. There are a few ways to address this issue.

Consumers are easily overwhelmed by the maze of long rectangular aisles that pack a typical grocery store. There are even some shoppers grocery merchandisers refer to as "dippers," meaning they leave their cart at the end of an aisle to go find the item they're looking for instead of pushing their cart with them. While this might be a savvy consumer strategy, it significantly reduces the likelihood of impulse buys, which hurts grocery merchandisers.

To draw those dippers in, brands should set up prominent displays in the middle of an aisle, instead of simply placing their items on the shelf next to everything else. Merchandisers should also consider utilizing an employee to hand out free samples in the aisle, which will engage more customers and increase the likelihood of impulse buys, according to Supermarket News.

For some products - mainly snack items or beverages - the checkout aisle can be another surefire place to make some last-minute sales. Checkout line sales totaled $5.6 billion in 2015, Bakery and Snacks reported. Carbonated beverages have the greatest success in these aisles followed by candy items. But good placement doesn't guarantee a consumer will pick up a product and purchase it: Brand packaging is another critical element to closing a sale.

Every color has its meaning

Packaging an item is not as simple as wrapping it in a bright color and shipping it off to the grocery store. Different colors can have a significant psychological impact on consumers and could be the difference between making a sale and losing one. To select the right color, merchandisers need to think about the feeling they are trying to convey to consumers.

Research has shown that warm colors - such as red, orange, and yellow - are more often associated with food products, according to Business World. These colors can speak to a shopper's stomach, which has the potential to lead to impulse sales. But too much yellow can be a bad thing. Yellow reflects more light than other colors, which can be irritating to the eye and turn consumers away.

On the other hand, cooler colors promote trust and loyalty, which is a creative way for brands to turn first-time buyers into repeat consumers. Green enhances a customer's sense of health and well-being about a product, so brands that cater to health-conscious consumers should consider integrating different shades of it into their packaging. And purple is associated with royalty, so brands that target wealthier consumers can utilize purple in their packaging to promote a consumer's feeling of opulence by using their product.

Create packaging that reflects the consumer 

Your packaging should change as consumer preferences evolve. Whether you're marketing a single product or a wide array of merchandise for a particular brand, it's critical that the feel, look, and messaging of a product's packaging matches up with a brand's target demographic. Gorton's - a brand that specializes in frozen seafood products - provides a good example of how to do this effectively.

In late September 2016, Gorton's implemented a total overhaul of its packaging. The brand offers approximately 20 different items per store where it's sold, but until the redesign everything was packaged in the same bright yellow that many consumers associate with that brand. Its packaging looks much different now.

Gorton's divided its products into three distinct categories: Delicious Classics, Smart Solutions, and Everyday Gourmet. Each of these different product types has a different style of packaging to help customers easily find what they're looking for, according to a Gorton's press release.

Delicious Classics - which includes products such as fish filets and breaded fish sticks - will continue to use the traditional yellow packaging, while Everyday Gourmet products - such as salmon and tilapia filets - will use shades of brown to differentiate those products from each other. Smart Solutions products will make the health information - such as protein, fat, and calorie content - prominent so health-conscious consumers can easily pick out what they want, the release stated.

Although this isn't the only strategy to enhance a brand's visual merchandising, tailoring its packaging to a brand's specific audience is one effective way grocery merchandisers can use to get their products flying off the shelves in no time.