Our first new Ask The Team article for the new year is all about ways to keep your store shelves looking neat, tidy, and well-stocked. If your products and merchandise are a messy or difficult to reach because the stock has been moved around or pushed to the back, your customers will leave your store (emphasis on “leave”) with the idea your entire staff and store or messy and disorganized — even if it’s just one or two shelves that may not be looking their best (and even though it was most likely a customer who shoved all those products around in the first place!) Your store = your fault.
Keeping retail shelves looking their best used to be a time consuming process. You had to have your team constantly policing aisles, managers appointing personnel to go restock products or simply straighten up the stock already on the shelves, or picking out the employee with the longest, thinnest arms to reach between the product rows and pull all the items forward to replace the items purchased from the front of the row.
Even though many retailers think it still has to be done this way — it’s simply not true. There are all sorts of gondola shelf accessories and improvements to shelf technology to help make this part of your job easier (or eliminate these tasks altogether!)
This week we Ask The Team…
How do I keeping store shelves organized?
Gary Kroneberger, Sales Executive
When you are looking at keeping your shelves neat and organized it’s really simple. Develop a plan on what is the most effective way to merchandise your product, take advantage of the merchandising accessories that are available to you that are cost effective, and plan on the store labor to help keep your product organized.
The benefits will far outweigh the costs and realistically you will see fewer lost sales due to messy unorganized product. How many times have you left a store frustrated because you couldn’t find what you were looking for due to messy unorganized shelves. This will hurt your store more than you think. Ultimately you will make more money! Here are some of the most common items most retailers use to better organize their shelves and make their store more inviting to their customers.
Front and back fencing with dividers
Whether it is wire, steel, or acrylic it’s a great way to separate product on shelves.
Gravity Feed Shelves
Gravity will move the product to the front of the shelf. This is usually achieved with a 15, 30, or 45 degree down-slant. Midwest Retail Services can help you with and gravity feed shelf — from rollers to plastic slides.
Pusher Systems
Usually intended for smaller products, often used by the pharmacy for over the counter medicines. Pusher trays and channels are great ways to keep your product faced to the front and organized.
Custom Solutions
Let Midwest Retail Services develop a custom shelf organization solution for your toughest to merchandise area.
The list goes on and on. Give us a call, whether it is a simple “off the shelf” solution or a custom organizer, we will find solutions for you.
Donna Cossin, General Manager
First, it’s important to choose the correct method or shelf size for the items being displayed. Will the product be more effectively merchandised on a shelf, on peg hooks, or in some kind of bin or end cap display? Think of the size and quantity of the item being displayed when making this selection. Matching the shelf size to the item is the most basic consideration.
Once this information is determined, we can help you choose from the many products available from Midwest Retail Services to help keep your shelves organized. Two common solutions are:
Wire Fencing
Pusher Systems
The one pictured here is the NEXT merchandising System (very impactful!), but there are many styles to choose from.
Check the Midwest Retail Services website for a sampling of Shelf Management accessories or give us a call and we can help you determine the best organizational products for your requirements.
Matt Ray, President
Keeping merchandise nice and neat is always a challenge for retailers. Balancing the labor costs between customer service and product management is also a big factor in retail stores. There are many options that many retailers do not consider when ordering gondola shelving that can make a world of difference on how their displays look and the costs to maintain them. These are a few products that can have a big impact.
NEXT Pusher Tray System
Keeps products front faced at all times without the need of store associates to pull product forward. Next can also increase merchandising density, increasing the number of SKUs in the retail space. It also helps with product rotation.
Shelf Fronts and Dividers
There are plenty of options to keep products organized, they include wire, plastic, and clear acrylic materials.
Product Pushers
Pushers can keep lighter weight products front faced on the shelves. Pushers can be used with or without dividers, although they are more effective with dividers.
Product Facers
These adjustable frames lay on the shelves around the product. Store associates can pull the frames forward on the shelves and they in turn slide the entire row of product forward to the front edge of the shelf. The concept is effective with bottles and very popular with European retailers.
