The history of marketing dates back to the beginnings of commerce itself. The five main types of merchandising are product, retail, visual, digital and omnichannel. Although they fall into five different categories, they are mainly interrelated. Convenience items include cigarettes, magazines, newspapers, cleaning products and personal care products, or soft drinks such as ice cream, cold beverages, etc.
To give a brief understanding of convenience products, they are consumer items that can be widely and easily accessed and can be purchased frequently with minimal purchasing effort. For example, if you want to buy a pack of chewing gum, which is considered a convenience product, you can buy it in many places, such as a vending machine, convenience store, pharmacy or supermarket, etc. Typical convenience products include widespread availability, lack of durability, low and standardized prices, regular and ongoing demands, and accessibility in convenient locations. Unlike specialized products (luxury cars, couture clothing or luxury products, etc.).
In addition, convenience products are likely to go through a demand transfer, in which customers choose a replacement if the brand product of their choice is not available for any reason. However, shoppers still have a brand in mind when they buy a specific product, so convenience products still maintain some brand loyalty to their consumers. Because of the characteristics of convenience items, customers often buy them out of habit or impulse and don't go through an intensive decision-making process. Meanwhile, they are also very sensitive to price increases for convenience items. The purchase price of a convenience product plays an important role in customer buying decisions.
Customers can stop buying a product if they think its price is much higher than the standard price. The ideal strategy for retailers in this case is to achieve a balance between price and demand, ensuring that the incremental increase in the price of a product does not have an adverse effect on the quantity of products sold. Retailers must also aim for their convenience products to reach a wide market and do their best to sell large volumes of convenience products at a rapid pace to make a profit. While there are basic products or essential items, which are fundamental to our daily lives and that we plan to buy most of the time, there are also impulse products that have no connection. These are products that we add to our shopping cart spontaneously without any kind of foresight.
Impulsive merchandise plays with people's feelings and emotions, allowing them to leave behind their rational thoughts and give in to their emotional side. A customer is instantly attracted to buying an impulsive product because it stimulates the customer's sense of instant gratification without any rhyme or reason. Impulsive products are generally low-priced items so that customers can buy them without a second thought. However, these items can be a great source of additional profit for retailers. They can also raise awareness for shoppers about the various products your store offers.
Some common places to display impulsive products are near a POS machine or around a checkout counter in supermarkets, service stations and other retail outlets. One thing to keep in mind is that the impulsive items shown should be the ones that incite shoppers to take a step forward and get hold of them without having to ask more questions about their features, benefits, sizes, etc. They can range from light refreshments such as snacks, confectionery products, beverages, etc., everyday household items such as razors and batteries; and entertainment items such as magazines, comics, VCDs and DVDs. The third type of consumer products are shopping products. Philip Kotler defined shopping products in his book “Principles of Marketing” as “A consumer product that the customer, in the selection and purchase process, compares in a characteristic way with others based on its suitability, quality, price and style”. Consumers tend to spend more time researching intensively and carefully comparing attributes such as quality, price and style with the alternatives available when buying shopping products.
This feature of shopping products is very different from that of convenience products and impulse products. Because the price of purchase products is quite high and consumers have to spend time and effort to make the final purchase decision, they often buy purchase products less frequently. A factor that helps to clearly distinguish between shopping products and convenience items is that instead of widespread availability; shopping products are often selectively distributed at a few retail outlets. When selling shopping products retailers must implement a personal sales and advertising strategy to provide deeper sales support to customers in their comparison effort. An example of shopping products are smartphones. Before deciding to buy a mobile phone model you often go through a rigorous decision-making process.
You can do some preliminary work to find several makes and models on the market. Then you may need to compare product features such as screen size battery memory etc., as well as cost for each brand before making your final purchase decision. Other examples of shopping products are computers and laptops appliances furniture kitchen utensils clothing etc. There are also two types of shopping products called homogenous products and heterogeneous products. Homogeneous products are those purchase items that are considerably similar in product attributes; one product can serve as perfect alternative for other while brand image price style suitability etc., can distinguish between two homogeneous product greatly affecting consumers buying behavior; hence combined product marketing strategy is needed for creating strong competitive advantage over brands competition. On other hand heterogeneous shopping product are those which have characteristics significantly different from each other; it is difficult replacing one product with another; this type of product implies high degree customer loyalty unlike homogenous product. In conclusion all five types merchandising namely product retail visual digital omnichannel have their own unique characteristics which need be taken into account while making marketing strategies for each type; understanding these types will help retailers create effective strategies for selling their merchandise.
