Merchandising, Pricing, and Product Content
Assortment, price, and content
Merchandising is the deliberate arrangement of assortment and information to raise conversion and margin. Core levers: category roles (destination, convenience, seasonal), assortment breadth versus depth, cross-sell and upsell, bundles, and placement rules on PLPs (best sellers, margin, newness, personalization). Pricing approaches include cost-plus, competitive, value-based, anchor pricing, price endings, and markdown cadence; elasticity tells you how volume responds and therefore whether a discount pays for itself.
Product content is both a conversion asset and a data asset: titles, attributes, structured data, images, video, specifications, reviews, and Q&A. Clean attribute data powers filters, comparison tables, marketplace feeds, paid shopping campaigns, and search relevance. A PIM exists to keep attribute data consistent across channels.
Traps: confusing markup (on cost) with margin (on price); assuming a 20% discount costs 20% of profit - it costs 20% of revenue, which at 40% margin is half the gross profit; believing MAP is law rather than a vendor policy; treating rich content as brand polish rather than a measurable conversion lever.
Rule of thumb: to hold gross profit flat after a discount, unit volume must rise by discount / (margin − discount).
Worked example: an item sells at $50 with $30 COGS, giving $20 gross profit. A 10% discount removes $5, leaving $15; volume must rise 5/15, or 33%, merely to hold profit - before any added fulfillment cost.