braden’s inspiration musings

You’re in the business of selling stuff online.  Do you have a web merchandiser? If so, what does their job description look like?  It seems to be that the role of merchandiser is seriously missing from many of today’s ecommerce companies.

Here is an interesting sample job description for a web merchandiser.  From this job description I key in on a few sentences that hint at the type of person they are looking for:

… Responsible for the front-end administration of the website and the content integration process of the website…. develop and compile strategic plans for on-line activities to improve the customer experience and improve performance metrics, incorporating findings from [web analytics and product performance]… Obtains product information and features from the merchandising teams and ensure that the aforementioned is web-ready, including drafting relevant copy for the product pages…

Does this sound at all technical to you? A little bit. Does this sound like a web analytics person? A little bit. Does this sound like a web designer? A little bit.  Need I go on?
It strikes me a little odd that we put people in charge of our online stores with titles such as “Developer” or “Marketer” or even “Sales” (present company included).  Why aren’t we looking at merchandisers? Why aren’t we looking to the people  who have designed the physical stores of the world’s largest retail chains, or the best boutiques for advise on how to sell our products online?

What makes a product stand out in a retail store? The color of the packaging. The sign above it. The position on the shelf. Look at how Apple set up in BestBuy.  They went contrarian to the blue and yellow and went black and white.  Do those product kiosks stand out in the store? Absolutely.

I’ve been critical of how bad some ecommerce sites look from a “designer’s” perspective, however, there is a good reason why they are the way they are: they work.  They aren’t winning any design awards, but they merchandise products well.  Look at Zappos.com - not the prettiest of sites, but they merchandise well.  Product information is clearly displayed. Contrasting colors are used to highlight key areas of the page.  On category pages, I see what’s new or on sale, its updated on a regular basis.

One of may favorite interview questions for web designers is this:  You’re setting up a new retail store for men’s shirts. Your first batch of inventory has arrived and you have a variety of colors, sizes and styles ordered. How would you organize the shirts?

I don’t know if there is a correct answer, but it certainly exposes how people think about IA, product merchandising, promotion etc.

The next time you design a site - imagine yourself in a store selling the same products:  how would a retail store be organized, how would they promo certain items? Can you find the right online execution to mirror these “real-world” scenarios? After all people are comfortable shopping through stores, can’t we bring more of that experience online? Maybe we’ve been focused on technology, design and usability too much - and what we need to do is merchandise products.

Should we be hiring and training people to be ‘web merchandisers’? What if your web develoment / design / marketing teams all considered themselves merchandisers - how would that change thier approach to the work they do?  How would that change the features of the webstore you run?