We have already explored the concept of strategic product placement and its relevance for retail stores in influencing the buyer’s decision to purchase the products or goods. The same applies to apparel retail stores, where the positioning of clothing and fashion merchandise impacts trial rates, drives impulse purchases, and drives sales. AI-powered tools for store planning, shelf optimization, and product placement will be a leg-up for fashion retail businesses in 2025.
Read the blog to understand approaches for strategic product placements for the retail fashion and apparel industry.
Why Strategic Product Placement Matters in the Clothing Business?
eMarketers’ survey on Consumer Path to Purchase finds that 38.5% of American buyers discover clothing brands and products by browsing in-store. In-store purchases allow customers to experience a product’s tangible elements. They can feel the fabric, color, and fit by trying on the apparel. Even the latest VR and AR tools for product visualization are not a close alternative to physically experiencing the product.
However, physical retail stores would barely stand a chance against their digital contemporaries if they did not enhance customers’ in-store experiences and implement compelling brand and product discovery strategies.
As of 2025, there are about 28 million eCommerce sites globally. Recent stats suggest that by 2027, e-commerce will account for more than 51% of apparel sales. In today’s digital-driven world, an average internet user spends approximately 143 minutes on social media. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok also contribute to one-in-five social commerce sales by allowing shoppers to visualize how the clothing appears on a real person.
Stiff competition with tech-enabled shopping platforms also provides perspectives into the key challenges in apparel product placement for in-store fashion and retail businesses. Let’s unpack them now.
Common Challenges with Apparel Product Placements in Physical Stores
The Display-Trial Dependency
The out-of-sight, out-of-mind quote is relevant in the fashion and clothing industry, where visual appeal matters for inspiring purchases. The dependency on the display and strategic positioning to encourage trials makes it tricky for clothing product stores that are ill-planned about placements. Poor placement reduces trial rates, impacting sales.
Customer Journey Complexity
Unlike groceries and everyday household products, clothing and apparel are not exactly essentials that customers would be motivated to buy regardless of the display or positioning. Fashion stores with non-linear shopping paths make it harder for customers to discover products and for the stores to determine high-impact placement zones.
Visual Appeal vs. Accessibility
Another touted benefit of planning and executing smart placement and display of clothing merchandise is providing customers with easy access to the products. Attractive and unique displays of products simplify browsing and selection and help instill the desire to try on or purchase a product.
Frequent Inventory Rotation
Fashion trends are cyclical. Clothing and apparel store managers and personnel need to be aware of trends to plan dynamic and adaptable product placement strategies within the available space. Brand stores that are updated with recent trends and styles are more likely to attract buyers’ attention.
Seasonal & Promotional Placement Conflicts
Every clothing brand operating with physical stores must manage and prioritize the prime store space for new collections, seasonal trends, and promotional displays. Poorly planned displays and placements discourage shopping and can be the greatest detractor to direct customer-brand/product engagement.
Strategic Approaches for Optimizing Apparel Product Placement
After uncovering in-store display and placement challenges inherent in the fashion and clothing industry, let’s examine brands’ time-tested strategies for optimizing apparel product placement.
Optimizing Trial-Driven Placement
Imagine sighting bags with criss-cross lines in black, white, and red on beige fabric at the display near the trial rooms. Customers aware of luxury brands would immediately recognize that the bag is a Burberry product that pairs well with the clothing item they are about to try. From luxury brands to affordable clothing retail businesses, product displays are both art and science that involve a combination of approaches like:
- Positioning high-value and trending items near fitting rooms to increase impulse purchases.
- Complementary product placements such as jackets near dresses and belts near jeans. Often, positioning items within proximity of the product that customers are exploring to purchase encourages them to buy more products that complete the look.
Front-of-Store & Window Display Strategy
Several renowned brands with a unique legacy of innovation and creativity use displays to maximize their identity, presence, and missions. Nike Lab in Chicago is a great example. Virgil Abloh, the art director of Louis Vuitton, collaborated with Nike to build a recreation center based on the theme of sustainability at the display. They used shoebox paper and cardboard for signage and displays. The seatings, floor areas, and mannequins were made using repurposed Nike trainers and shoes as a message to recycle old products. There are several other methods that brands adopt, such as:
- Leveraging First Impressions: Showcasing high-margin or new-arrival products at the entrance or displays creates strong first impressions about the store and the products. It invites customers who are seeking high-end products or the latest clothing designs to enter the stores.
- Brand Storytelling with Displays: Just like NikeLab, several brands have their own unique display window designs and placement strategies for building a brand image and identity. By using effective lighting and vantage points for display, brands place products in their signature colors and flagship styles and use brand mascots to attract customers.
- Mannequins and Digital Screens: Product sales are the ultimate objective of clothing and fashion merchandise stores. Therefore, they must evoke a desire for their products by displaying them on mannequins or placing digital screens showcasing images and videos of models dressed in their brand attire.
Zoning & Store Layout Optimization
Visual merchandising is the subtle art of balancing product aesthetics and store space availability. Clothing brands cannot settle with grid layouts used in grocery stores and supermarkets. Shop zoning and layout planning are based on customer psychology, product features, ergonomics, discounts, etc. The standard practices for maximizing space and layouts are:
- Power Wall Placement: involves placing the best-selling or seasonal items on the right-hand side, where most customers instinctively turn. It is proven that in any market, close to 90% of shoppers move from the far-right wall.
- High-Traffic Entry Points: Almost all stores leverage trend-based placements near store entrances for the visibility of products.
- Cross-Merchandising with Accessories: From Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s to Ralph Lauren, most brands are known for positioning handbags, footwear, jewelry, and accessories near apparel sections to increase basket size.
- Impulse & Checkout Counter Placements: The most common tactic for attracting last-minute purchase impulses involves positioning lower-cost fashion items (e.g., sunglasses, socks, accessories) near the checkout. Some stores also display and post promotional messages for add-on deals and time-limited discount announcements at the billing counters.
AI & Data-Driven Techniques for Apparel Product Placement
Most fashion-forward brands have moved beyond conservative approaches and vehemently adopted AI and Gen AI for in-store operations, marketing, inventory management, customer services, and store designs. AI tools have effectively improved sales margins by enabling store and sales personnel to run operations seamlessly and plan innovative merchandising and inventory allocation across the stores. As per McKinsey’s analysis, Gen AI quickly adds up to $150 billion to $275 billion as operating profit for apparel, fashion, and luxury sectors.
We see clear cases of AI and Gen AI-based tools used across the fashion and retail value chain. In store operations, AI-led product placement tools enable functions such as:
Heatmap & Foot Traffic Analysis
AI helps analyze and identify what the customer wants compared to what the store is offering. The AI-led analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the high-engagement zones based on real customer movement to understand and implement relevant placement strategies.
AI-Driven Planograms
Optimizing shelf space and rack arrangements based on historical sales data, predicting upcoming trends, and forecasting demand with AI-driven planograms helps according to store dimensions, locations, and formats. It helps create practical layouts and store designs that are meant to engage customers and impact sales.
Dynamic Placement Adjustments
Gen AI tools offer recommendations on real-time repositioning. For custom placement strategies tailored to brand products and sales objectives, AI-driven tools analyze stock levels, customer preferences, and sales data in real-time to suggest placement adjustments.
Smart Mirrors & Virtual Try-Ons
Many retail fashion brands and clothing stores leverage AI to deliver ‘phygital’ and immersive customer experiences. A Google survey finds that 56% of consumers use smartphones while shopping in stores. By integrating experiences and features for digital product trials and visualization, brands cater to new buyers with experiential models, in-store engagements, and product interactions.
Conclusion
In 2025, we are beyond a state of infatuation with AI. Apparel brands globally will favor fashion-tech projects driven by AI to deliver personalization and creativity at scale. The use of AI-enabled platforms for making informed decisions and data-backed placement will continue to impact apparel sales.
Is your fashion brand seeking to innovate in-store experience with innovative merchandising solutions backed with advanced AI capabilities?
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