O’Neill Uses Visual Retailing Technology
to Transform its Visual Merchandising
and Store Planning

Complex Merchandising Pains

In the past, the merchandising process for O’Neill was developing a collection biweekly. A visual guideline was created along with it and sent to the stores in a big pile of paper. The stores then had to execute this visual merchandising guideline as best they could given the merchandising range they had, and then the local store staff sent photos of the execution back to headquarters for feedback. It was a long feedback loop. 

“Our merchandising process in the past has been very stiff and rigid in terms of in-store merchandising. One of the big challenges we were facing was how to get faster and more agile in terms of our visual merchandising process. We were in the market for a tool that would allow us to become more reactive to what’s happening at the store-level.”

O’Neill uses Visual Retailing to easily disseminate range analysis, create merchandising guidelines and displays, identify problem areas, and collaborate on new ideas. 

“We use it to facilitate our biweekly store changeovers, from sending directives to discussing what’s working and what isn’t. It saves a ton of time compared to our old process, and has quickly become an essential fixture of our operations strategy.”

Thanks to improvements in communication and process, Visual Retailing tools have positively impacted O’Neill’s company culture. The program facilitates a much more fluid, collaborative conversation, helping the company become more efficient in their day-to-day operations. 

They now have a better connection with the in-store team, and the documents they’re sending out are more less cumbersome to put together – they know they’ll be able to answer questions and give feedback more readily, rather than putting together meticulously detailed planograms and waiting for photos from the individual stores.

“It’s not orders from headquarters kind of communication – the guideline still stays a guideline. Now there’s more connectedness and understanding between the store, field and HQ.”

Optimising already existing store layouts

Visual merchandising is the art of presentation, putting the focus on merchandise. It educates the customer and creates a desire to buy. It’s a presentation of a store. But what happens when each individual store is built differently?

As the science of how customers behave in stores, and thus how your product placement can provide them with the optimal shopping experience, it’s imperative to take distinct store layouts into account. Each store has its own unique high/low traffic areas and where people linger.  

As retailers well know, operating across a whole country or even a continent means not every store is the same, not every store has the exact same assortment of merchandise. With such a varied store-to-store footprint, making one guideline to suit every store was clearly not the ideal solution for O’Neill.

“Even if it’s the same O’Neill store, the interior looks a little different due to the architecture of the building. So they need to make a compromise on how to use the guideline within their own environments.”

By using Visual Retailing software, O’Neill can design individual floor layouts, shelving and product displays to maximize sales and give customers an exciting shopping experience. 

“You need to figure out the layout of the store, which styles are coming in, and what story you want to tell at this particular location. If you have that all dialed in, only then can you decide how you would present product within this particular environment.”

With Visual Retailing’s MockShop, O’Neill can easily change guideline layouts per store and cluster to better serve staff and customers. 

“The benefit of planning a store in the MockShop program, in a
3-dimensional part, is being able to make quick changes in your presentation.”