How to Create and Use a Retail Planogram

Retail Planogram are the Key to Profitable Merchandising

A planogram is a visual diagram, or drawing, that provides details on the placement of every product in a retail store. These schematics not only present a flow chart for the particular merchandise departments within a store layout but also show which aisle and on what shelf an item is located. A planogram should also illustrate how many facings are allocated for each SKU.

Planograms can be as simple as a photo of a preset section or more detailed with numbered peg holes and shelf notches showing exact placement of each item. In my stores, we used an Excel spreadsheet for our planogram. It was crude for sure, but it worked. And it did not cost us any money which was my favorite part. 

Creation of Planograms

As competition increases, we're seeing the importance of correctly merchandising the products instore to drive consumer experience and drive sales.

I myself, used an Excel spreadsheet for my planograms, it took some time to create the template, but once it was done, it was a great tool for my stores. This practice led to planograms that were driven by the customer versus the store. In other words, by identifying the most "viewed" parts of the store, we could predict sales. After all, the spot that is getting the most customer eyeballs will obviously also yield the most sales. The fascinating part about this research is that it is not always the endcap. What we can prove is that placement of merchandise had an exponential impact on sales. Thus solidifying the case for planograms.

Planograms also help protect visual merchandising disasters, it's a warning about the danger of selecting an interior designer who does not understand planograms versus a visual merchandiser who does. 

Planogram Purpose

Product placement and improved sales are just two very basic reasons a retailer should be implementing planograms in their shops. Planograms provide many other positive benefits as well:

• Assigned selling potential to every square meter of space
• Satisfying customers with a better visual appeal
• Tighter inventory control and reduction of out-of-stocks
• Easier product replenishment for staff
• Better related product positioning
• Effective communication tool for staff-produced displays

Any good retailer realizes the key to increased sales is through proper visual merchandising. A planogram is one of the best merchandising tools for presenting products to the customer. If you are a small retailer, say one store, planograms are a bit harder to pull off. Don't get stuck thinking you need a piece of software to planogram your store. Remember the Excel example. It can be used to create a planogram for a retail store. The key is to follow the principle of planograms not so much the fancy printouts.

Planogram Best Practices

Here are some best practices to follow when using planograms.

• Start simple. Too many retailers make the planogram process too complicated and eventually lose steam after a few months. In other words, if it takes a ton of time to create, then your likelihood of doing it every month will grow less and less as time passes. And eventually you will stop. Your time is limited and valuable. Do not adopt a process that you cannot sustain. It will only frustrate your employees. 
• Train your employees. Spend time training the employees on how to use a planogram. Your expert employees especially will think they don't need it. Simply handing them a diagram is not enough. Be specific. Have general visual guidelines they can follow. 
• Measure your plan. Each month, pull reports on your sales and look at your planogram. For example, we had a table in my stores that was the highest volume generator of the whole store. But one month, we sold hardly anything. It was a "special" display for the season. So made perfect sense. However, the numbers said different. Turned out, it got cooler earlier than usual and the customers had already started thinking Fall. 
• Assign your Champions. In your store, you should have champions or leads for each section. This person is in charge of the sales out of that area and this includes the visual merchandising. Allow them to design and plan their part of the planogram as part of the process. When I did this in my stores, not only did it improve the visual merchandising of the store, it also prepared my employees for management. Plus, it improved my loss prevention and shrinkage. A well merchandised store is the best defense against theft. It's easy to tell when you have lost something. 
• Know Your Customer. Today's shoppers want product at eye level. They not only want to touch and feel them, but they want to interact with them. For some stores, less merchandise on display with more interactivity is the right technique. 

If you aren't using planograms, it's time to start. Just like having an open to buy system is critical to your inventory management success, so is the visual merchandising driven by your planogram.