User:Alexalathom/Merchandising

Promotional merchandising
(Often, a Christmas in July celebration is held around this time.) The back-to-school market is promoted heavily in August, when there are no holidays to promote. By September, particularly after Labor Day, summer merchandise is on final closeout and overstock of school supplies is marked-down some as well, and Halloween (and often even more of the Christmas) merchandise is appearing. As the Halloween decorations and costumes dwindle in October, Christmas is already being pushed on consumers, and by the day after Halloween retailers are going full-force with advertising, even though the "official" season doesn't start until the day after Thanksgiving. Christmas clearance sales begin even before Christmas at many retailers, though others begin on the day after Christmas and continue on at least until New Year's Day but sometimes as far out as February.

'''This trend of stocking stores with merchandise many weeks prior to the actual holiday and the period of consumption can be described by the term advance selling. Although it may seem disadvantageous for sellers, advance selling can have the opposite effect. For example, this practice works to counteract a lack of abundant capacity in stores during prime seasons and a lack of value in premature products.'''

Merchandising also varies within retail chains, where stores in places like Buffalo might carry snow blowers, while stores in Florida and southern California might instead carry beach clothing and barbecue grills all year. Coastal-area stores might carry water skiing equipment, while ones near mountain ranges would likely have snow skiing and snowboarding gear if there are ski areas nearby.

Silent persuasion
'''As promotional merchandise acquires a larger portion of companies' annual budgets, its appearance in the hands of unintended recipients increases. However, this has been found to generate a positive outcome for companies without any additional effort after producing the merchandise because of the concept of silent persuasion. The concept theorizes that even without the acknowledgement of the brand being promoted on the merchandise, the individual utilizing it is affected in their future actions as a consumer. Furthermore, a 2019 study found that the tactile usage of the products produced a greater response in consumers than a solely visual coincidental interaction with a product such as posters. This study concluded that considering allotting a greater sum of money to smaller pieces of merchandising that promote a brand would benefit newer companies that have yet to become quickly recognizable.'''

Channel merchandising
'''This concept can be linked to marketing channels which bring products from the possession of the producer into the possession of the consumer. In recent decades, these methods utilized by companies to provide merchandise have expanded from in-person only, to online-only for some stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, to a mixture of both, sometimes referred to as omnichannel retailing. The combination of all three options for consumers provides a favorable encounter with retailers that makes them more likely to purchase products and return to the seller again at a future date. However, these strategies can be difficult for sellers to maintain as it can require many more physical and technical resources that may not be currently available to them.'''

Online merchandising
'''A challenge that online retailers face in comparison to the traditional in-store shopping experience is the sensory exploration that isn't available to consumers through a screen. An area this is especially prevalent in is clothing or fashion retail in which potential sizing issues can be a large factor in a customer refraining from purchasing an item online. Moreover, accurately portraying the texture and quality of a product in all areas of retail, not limited to fashion, remains a challenge in the field of online merchandising as the lack thereof has been proven to result in more indecision for consumers. Because of this, many companies look for ways to improve their online shopping options to make browsing merchandise as similar to an in-store experience as possible while keeping up with the growing online market.'''