When it comes to consumer behavior no matter how similar some consumers may be, they normally are not the same. They act in their own way and have their own separate likes. It’s all based on individual believes and it makes it hard to be able to identify different groups to target. There’s an acronym called AIDA that helps describe the buying process.

There are multiple acronyms that help you identify the buying process, but AIDA is one of the most popular ones. It helps make consumers aware of offers or explain how the products/services satisfy a person’s unmet need.  Another useful tool to have in hand is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It helps identify needs.

Layout and visual merchandising are one of the most important thing about any retail store. It’s a form of communication between a retailer and a customer. It helps organize the store and it makes it easier to find merchandise and that’s a plus for the retailer and the customer finding what they wanted to find. With that there are multiple layouts that store use to help maximize retail space. There are layouts like the grid, angular, geometric, etc. All of these are used to help the customer see all the merchandise and help the retailer show off all their products and make customers take a path that they want them to take.

Right now, I’m doing a simulation where I run a store called E-Tronics. I’m supposed to run the store and make sure i hit the sales mark each week. It’s a managerial role and I’m able to move the shelfs around to try out different merchandise layouts. There are only a few shelves, but I never realized how hard it is to organize the store to make sure that the products sell and the products that are made for that product sell as well. In the front I made it so that impulse merchandise is by the registers so that people pick it up

. I made sure to listen to what customers had to say about the store to better improve it.

But this is just like any store and these are just people. So, I played on that and I organized the store so there are accessories by every product. This drove my sales through the roof. I had to make sure there were people on the floor stocking and there were people on the floor helping customers and driving them to buy those accessories that they may or may not need.

I really like this simulation because it really gets you working on different ways that you can make more sales and it shows you that visual merchandising and the layout are so important in making a sale.