The main merchandising trends in retailing today.

Martine MarescauxChristophe Anjolras

Both of us are dedicated to helping the brands and distributors create real merchandising policies for the following two fundamental reasons. Merchandising defines: 1. the direct relationship between the customer and the product sold; 2. and, the direct relationship between the sign or the brand and the customer at the sales point.In order to define a merchandising policy it is essential toconsider the various types of relationships: brand-sign /customer and customer/product, that one wishes to create in the store. In order to work together we propose an analysis tool that makes it possible to identify four major and current trends. We have selected to analyze the merchandising of retail and big name home signs from the energy standpoint, by comparing low and high tension and then from the cultural standpoint, by comparing the past and the future.Thus, the 4 major trends are:1. hyper merchandising: “hyper, mega, super” 2. non merchandising: minimalism, ”less is more” 3. neo merchandising: “just like home”, “no place like home 4. forward or pre-merchandising: “as good as before” and “as good as over there”.The 4 main brand identify values are quite clear:1. force and power 2. comfort and well-being 3. genuinity and naturalness 4. originality and noveltyThe interest in these approaches is to develop a customer-visible position and to deliberately choose a merchandising policy in harmony with the values of the brand-sign. The other interest of such a measure is to evaluate the consequence of merchandising on the type of brand-sign/customer relationship achieved in this way.For example, the Carrefour sign, number 1 in France andnumber 2 in the world (after Wal-Mart), great specialists in hyper-merchandising in its superstores, recently changedits entire merchandising concept in its newest store in the Carré Sénart shopping mall.

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1 Carrefour, Montesson. Example of Hyper Merchandising. 2 Helmut Lang, New York. Example of No Merchandising. 3 Micael Gabellini, Jill Sander, Parigi. Example of No Merchandising.

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