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Merchandising in an online store

| Article: 2 min read | Catalog and marketplaces

Merchandising in an online store is managing which products, in what order and in what form the buyer sees on catalog pages, in search and on the homepage. The goal is for the right product to be easy to find and appealing to buy.

In plain words

Offline, merchandising is display: what sits at eye level, what is by the checkout. Wikipedia defines visual merchandising as the practice of optimizing the presentation of products to better showcase their features and benefits and encourage a purchase (Wikipedia). In an online store, the "shelf" is the category page, search results, "similar products" blocks and the homepage.

What it includes:

  • Product order in a category: default, by popularity, by availability, by margin.
  • The card in the list: photo, color swatches, price, reviews, labels.
  • Sorting and filters.
  • Collections and blocks: bestsellers, new arrivals, promotions, "bought together".
  • Availability: whether to move products that are actually in stock to the top, not just on the site.

What research says

Baymard Institute evaluated product lists on 170+ sites: 58% of desktop and 78% of mobile ecommerce sites have "poor" or "mediocre" list quality. Among the recommendations:

  • group variations of one product into one card with swatches (42% of sites do not), see product variants;
  • show at least 3 thumbnails (80% of sites fall short);
  • have five filters where they make sense: price, rating, color, size, brand (51% of sites lack all five);
  • allow multiple values to be chosen in one filter (14% do not);
  • show applied filters with an easy reset (20% do not);
  • offer four sorts: by price, rating, sales and newness (about 68–69% of sites do not offer all four);
  • show unit price when similar products are sold in different pack sizes (67% do not) (Baymard).

Example (illustrative numbers)

A home goods store shows new arrivals by default in the "Tableware" category. The first screens are taken up by items that are out of stock. The fix: move in-stock bestsellers with a healthy margin to the top (ABC analysis helps choose them), push unavailable ones to the bottom, add sorting by rating. Then look at how the category conversion and revenue per session changed, ideally through an A/B test.

Common mistakes

  • The same order for all segments and all seasons.
  • Many out-of-stock products in the top positions.
  • Merchandising "by eye" with no measurement. Change one thing at a time and compare.
  • Forgetting mobile: fewer items fit on the screen, so mistakes are more visible.
  • Promoting only the most expensive or most profitable, ignoring what people actually buy.

FAQ

What is merchandising in plain words? It is choosing what to show the buyer and how, so they find and buy what they need faster.

How is online merchandising different from offline? Instead of shelves there are category pages and search; the order can be changed every day and the result measured in numbers.

Where do I start? With the most visited categories: check the sorting, filters, availability and what is visible on the first screen.

Sources

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