E-commerce Merchandising: How to Drive Sales with Improved Product Presentation

Mistakes in product layout and assortment presentation are one of the main reasons why customers leave a site without ever making a purchase. Such oversights affect not only financial performance but also the store's reputation.

Nevertheless, well-thought-out e-commerce merchandising helps turn a chaotic structure into a carefully planned system in which products are arranged so that it's easier for customers to make their choice.

In this article, we will look at how to effectively organize your catalog, automate routine operations, and increase conversion through optimal product sorting in Magento.

Table of Contents

• Why a store needs a well-planned merchandising strategy
• How to understand that you need to improve your merchandising
• How to find a balance between the desire to sell and customer convenience
• How dynamic categories help boost sales
• How to implement digital merchandising in practice
• Conclusion

Why a store needs a well-planned merchandising strategy

Imagine a classic brick-and-mortar store: top-selling products are displayed on the most visible shelves, new arrivals and promotional offers are highlighted with bright price tags, and less popular items are pushed to the back. All of this is the essence of merchandising, which yields quite tangible results in an offline setting.

The same principles apply in the online space, but they're often implemented in a different way. There are no shelves here, but there are catalog pages—which customers rarely scroll past the second or third page.

If the products you plan to promote actively end up buried on distant pages, there's a high risk they'll go completely unnoticed. That's precisely why smart product sorting Magento logic and well-structured categories in e-commerce come to the forefront.

When we first began developing the sorting module for Magento, everything stemmed from real store requests. Owners complained that the catalog was in disarray: items with no photos or out-of-stock products would suddenly appear at the top, while the items they needed and stood to benefit from ended up somewhere at the bottom.

There could be situations where discontinued models or out-of-stock goods showed up at the top, while the offers the store intended to promote were hidden at the very end of the list.

This kind of chaos leads to two problems:

1. The customer spends too much time searching. If a person doesn't see products matching their query, obvious bestsellers, discounts, or relevant brands—and has to scroll page by page hoping to find something better—conversion rates drop.
2. The store can't meet its commercial goals. You might have a contract to promote a specific brand or a range of high-margin products, but without proper sorting logic, they remain unnoticed.

In an offline environment, a merchandiser can clearly plan the order in which customers encounter different products. But in e-commerce, you can't rely on people browsing the entire catalog.

Typically, they only see the first screen and the first few positions on the list, then at most one or two subsequent pages. That's why the principle of "showing everything that sells less first and the hits later" just won't work online.

How to understand that you need to improve your merchandising

Often, online stores may be missing out on some sales without even realizing it. On the one hand, it may seem that the catalog is structured pretty well; on the other, certain signals point to issues that prevent customers from quickly finding the items they need and spoil their impression of the site.

Below, we'll look at three main symptoms indicating that your digital merchandising needs refining.

Symptom 1. Customers go straight to the search, ignoring categories

If most visitors immediately type a query into the search bar and almost never use the top menu or side sections, the problem is likely an inconvenient category structure.

Perhaps the category tree seems logical to you, but for new customers, it's not obvious where exactly to find the desired product. Another possibility is that, within categories, products aren't arranged at all (for example, the items appear in a random assortment).

As a result, the user, unable to find a quick path through normal navigation, tries typing something like "red sweater" or "iPhone case." If the search results are also insufficiently accurate, there's a high chance they'll just go to a competitor's site.

Of course, this only applies to widely sought-after products. For others, search is necessary because suitable categories may not exist.

Symptom 2. The same products keep hanging around with no sales

Some items clearly don't move: no sales for weeks or even months. This may mean that customers simply don't see them. For instance, products with no images or reviews are often pushed to the bottom of the list by algorithms.

Sometimes you specifically want to promote these items (for example, if they have a high margin), but manually moving them to the top is difficult—especially if the store has thousands of products.

Symptom 3. Major promotions that no one notices

You've brought in a fresh batch of goods for a sale, but customers only find out about it via a newsletter with a direct link. If someone just visits the site to browse, they don't see these promotional products: they aren't featured on the main page, in the "Sale" category, or at the top of the list.

As a result, you miss out on shoppers who might have bought something on sale but simply don't know it exists.

This often happens because there isn't a dedicated category or block: if you haven't created a dynamic "Discounts > 30%" category or at least a banner on the home page, users won't realize there's a promotion.

Or, due to unclear sorting, the sale items may end up on the fifth page of the catalog because they have few reviews or aren't bestsellers.

How to find a balance between the desire to sell and customer convenience

Experience shows that ideally, we want to combine the store's benefit (raising the visibility of items that need to be sold quickly or yield the highest margin) with the customer's benefit (showing them relevant, interesting options).

For example, in our Improved Sorting module, you can combine several criteria at once and set priorities:

1. The newest products added in the last 90 days.
2. Bestsellers (by number of sales).
3. Discounted products.
4. All other items, sorted by historical sales or rating.

This logic is recalculated automatically once a day. When new products appear, they move to the top, and you don't have to edit catalog positions manually.

However, this is just one example of how sorting can work. You can develop your own approach depending on the store's goals.

For instance, we had a client—a cosmetics store—with a unique layout scheme: three products of any color, then one red, then three of any color again, then another red, and so on throughout the entire storefront.

You might think: "Why do that?" But for this client, it made sense and fit the brand's visual concept: the red items had to be noticeable without appearing consecutively.

In such cases, stores use custom settings or manually arrange the order.

Or, for example, if we're talking about specialized products, the notion of "bestseller" may not be relevant. Completely different criteria are needed.

Another of our clients sold automotive parts and screws. For them, sorting by bestsellers was pointless.

They made availability in stock—and how quickly items could be obtained from suppliers—a priority.

If a product required a long lead time, it got pushed down, while items easily available moved up. For them, this was more important than popularity or reviews.

How dynamic categories help boost sales

In addition to sorting products in Magento within existing sections, a store often needs to create separate blocks or entire category extensions for sales, new arrivals, or products of a particular brand.

When the assortment is small, it might seem that one or two content managers can handle everything. However, once you grow to hundreds or thousands of products:

• Managers spend hours periodically moving items to the promotional section.
• They keep track of out-of-stock products so they can be hidden or labeled accordingly.
• They prominently display new arrivals.

Any mistake made in haste can lead to lost sales. For instance, forgetting to move discounted items on time or placing popular products on distant pages.

Imagine you have different product groups (for example, electronics). You want not only to sort products within a single category, but also to automatically create new subcategories where the necessary items will populate themselves:

• Discount category: Products with a discount > 0% automatically go to the "Sale" section.
• New Year's sale: All items with the "Christmas" tag (or items on sale from December to January) form a temporary "New Year's Offers" category.
• Gaming laptops: Products with the attributes "Type: laptop," "RAM: ≥16 GB," "Powerful graphics card: yes"—all automatically go into the "Gaming Laptops" category.

Our Dynamic Categories module takes care of all this: You set a rule: "Display products with a discount greater than 15%" or "Show everything added in the last 30 days." The system automatically updates such a section: as prices change or new products appear, the section will populate itself and remove any irrelevant items.

As a result, customers immediately see an up-to-date selection: there's no need for manual labor to add every new product or remove those whose promotion has ended.

All of this helps create visibility for the customer: the right items are automatically highlighted and placed in the spotlight, whether on the first page of the catalog or in a special "New Arrivals/Sale" category.

You also remain adaptable to changes at all times: if today's priority is bestsellers from the last 5 days, and tomorrow—from the last month, or if the availability criteria change, you only need to adjust the rule once, and the entire catalog is instantly restructured.

As a result, properly configured smart sorting and Magento 2 dynamic categories free you from manual routine tasks while simultaneously improving the user experience. Customers can find the products they need more quickly and won't miss out on your best deals.

Let's say you sell electronics. Every month, new smartphone models and accessories appear, while older ones leave the assortment. Without proper sorting and dynamic categories, your store might work like this:

• New products stay at the bottom for a week until someone on the team remembers to move them up. During that time, you lose those who came specifically for the latest arrivals.
• Bestsellers get mixed in with everything else, even though they could generate more sales if they were visible right away.
• Summer sale discounts end, but promotional items are still sitting in the "Sale" section, confusing customers.

Once you configure dynamic logic, the problem disappears. Everything looks fresh and up-to-date, customers find what they need faster, and you reduce the risk of stagnation in the catalog.

Although Improved Sorting and Dynamic Categories are two separate modules, together they provide a comprehensive solution.

With Dynamic Categories, you can create and organize categories based on specific rules:

With Improved Sorting, you then sort the products within each category as you wish (for example, by bestsellers or by profit margin):

Ultimately, the customer sees the right subcategories and products in an order that benefits both them and you.

This approach helps highlight the necessary items more quickly and further automates catalog management.

How to implement digital merchandising in practice

If we propose a specific merchandising algorithm for a business, it would look like this.

Analyze your category structure

When a store has hundreds or thousands of products, confusion often arises: customers have trouble figuring out where to go next. Take a look at whether your structure is truly convenient. If people prefer to use search immediately, you might need to rethink how your categories are organized and what they contain.

Determine your priorities

Which goals are most important right now—promoting a new collection, clearing out inventory, or featuring a particular brand? Based on this, set the weight of factors (newness, discount, availability, margin, etc.) so the sorting algorithm understands what's key at the moment.

Automate the sorting

Set up the rules or formula once so the system automatically distributes products according to the relevant criteria. For example, by the number of sales in the last 30 days or by the discount amount.

This is especially valuable during sales periods like Black Friday: hot deals will always stay at the top, and once the event is over, the system will revert to its previous logic without any extra effort on your part.

Add dynamic categories

You can automatically generate various categories that are relevant for your business. When new items or attributes appear, they will be placed in the correct sections by the Dynamic Categories module.

Sometimes you need to change the logic (priorities, data collection period) when starting a new promotion or bringing in a new assortment. Test different options, monitor conversion, and adapt accordingly.

It's easy to see the effect: if customers start finding the products they need faster, overall conversion grows, and the number of abandoned sessions goes down.

You can always check the statistics in Google Analytics as well.

It's important to note that the user often doesn't even realize the sorting and categories are dynamic. Everything looks natural to them: they go to "Mobile Phones" and see the most popular models first—the iPhones or Samsungs everyone is talking about. If they want, they can filter by price, but the basic sorting has already done its job by showing them the most in-demand products.

Essentially, we prevent the customer from getting lost. If they need brand X or a product for a specific task, they immediately land on a simplified selection and save effort. The fewer clicks between them and the final purchase, the higher the chance that purchase will take place.

Conclusion

Merchandising in e-commerce isn't just about describing products; it's a whole system that helps the customer quickly find what they need and nudges them toward a purchase.

Well-structured site merchandising, sorting and dynamic categories in Magento let you highlight the products that bring you the most profit or are popular among customers, while also automating most routine catalog management processes.

Improved Sorting helps set priorities based on bestsellers, reviews, margin, and other attributes. Dynamic Categories saves you from manually assigning products to different categories and makes it easier for customers to navigate.

As a result, you get:

1. A logical catalog structure.
2. Convenient sorting that adapts to demand.
3. Less routine work—more time to grow your business.
4. Increased conversion and higher average order values.

In other words, everything that merchandising achieves offline translates beautifully online, provided you have the right tools and settings.