Picture your favourite store. It’s a shopping magnet that inspires confidence and loyalty in everything it does.

Products are deftly displayed to spark interest; clever design takes customers on a journey layered with discovery; there are expertly trained staff within arm’s reach, and a programme of on-brand in-store events.

It’s equally enjoyable to encounter that same brand online. Here, you shop with intuitive navigation; images of products in context; clear categorisation; engaging content; personalised offers; a free delivery promise and order tracking. There’s even overnight shipping... What’s not to like!?

Easy, enjoyable shopping is happening in both locations. This is all because a number of interlinked elements - some seen, some invisible - are hard at work creating an optimum retail experience for the customer, smoothing their path to purchase and beyond.

This is the art and science of merchandising for your eCommerce store.

Typically, today’s consumer navigates a complex ‘retail landscape’, a place that is multi-device and multi-platform. Their purchase journeys often incorporate the physical and online elements of any given brand. Someone looking to buy a new laptop might begin with a Google search for best laptops.

Next, they may go to retailer websites and compare products, pricing and delivery. A store visit to check a shortlist and a price comparison online comes next. Finally, they complete their purchase online or in-store.

Brands have to be geared to meet the needs of these hyperconnected, busy, savvy consumers, whether they’re shopping on multiple channels or solely online.

In today’s competitive retail landscape, providing consumers with what they want, when and how they want it is vital to get them close to, or completing a purchase. This is the overall aim of merchandising for eCommerce.

We’re going to focus on five components key to eCommerce success: onsite search; site browse; site content; personalised recommendations; and [5] discounts and promotions.

First up, let’s take a look at Search.

Good onsite search is a must-have. Why? Well, for a start, shoppers using onsite search typically have a higher conversion rate than those using standard navigation - so it’s really important to deliver quality and relevant search results. It’s also crucial to prioritise the first page of results.

Shopper behaviour on Amazon illustrates this: 90% of Amazon’s product views come direct from its own search engine - not from marketing - and more than 65% of product clicks come from the first page of results.

Data is your friend. Analysing what people search for on your site will help you to connect with their needs. Remember, the fewer dead-ends, the fewer frustrated people leaving your website dissatisfied.

You should run regular reports of searches that return zero product results and fix issues where you have matching products for a query but the algorithm isn’t finding them. Maybe customers have misspelt their search query or are using search terms that your algorithm hasn’t recognised.

AI technology has a huge part to play here, with tools that learn which products have the best click-through or conversion rate for each query and then decide which results to return and in which order.

Now, let’s turn to Site Browse: the menus and different filtering options customers use to navigate your site. The main merchandising challenge here is aligning menus and labels with the language shoppers use and how they search.

We all know how frustrating it can be when things aren’t where you’d expect to find them. So, it’s important to think about which categories your customers would expect to find products in and the terms they’ll use to describe those products and categories.

Retailer ASOS does this very effectively, recognising that while a US shopper will look search for 'pants', a UK shopper searches for 'trousers'.

Product list pages present a key opportunity for testing merchandising tactics as they offer many different elements that can be visually merchandised. These include: the main menu; brand value messaging; navigation options; pagination controls; and the style of featured content.

Merchandising for eCommerce

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