Remerchandising

Remerchandising is the ongoing process of adjusting the arrangement, presentation, and assortment of products within a retail space to influence consumer behavior and improve financial performance. It encompasses repositioning items, updating displays, and revising planograms in response to sales data, seasonality, new product introductions, promotions, and inventory changes. The goal is to maximize sales per square foot, improve inventory turnover, and reduce stockouts or overstocks.

Activities in remerchandising include layout optimization, category management, cross-merchandising, endcaps, shelf facings, pricing alignment, and signage updates. It may involve seasonal resets, rotation of featured products, and strategic substitutions to align with demand. In-store or on-site teams use sales analytics, category data, and sometimes in-store testing to guide changes. Tools commonly employed are planograms, category-management software, and point-of-sale data.

Remerchandising applies to both physical stores and online channels, and it covers assortment tweaks within a product family as well as across related categories. Typical examples include moving high-demand items to eye level, creating cohesive feature sets, grouping complementary products, and updating displays to highlight promotions or bundles.

Performance is assessed with metrics such as sales lift, sell-through rate, gross margin, inventory turnover, and on-shelf availability. Remerchandising is a continuous optimization process distinct from initial product assortment planning, aimed at adapting to changing demand, promotions, and the lifecycle stage of products.