The retail marketing mix is more than a checkbox for the syllabus of a marketing course. Each seven aspects help retailers who are facing challenges in growing sales and profits, making excellent customer service essential across all shopping channels.
Forrester's latest Retail Predictions report shows that rising wages and changing buying power mean brands should invest in unified, technology-based approaches. In this article, you’ll learn how a unified retail marketing mix meets these challenges head-on.
What is the retail marketing mix?
The retail marketing mix is a business strategy that combines all elements needed to attract customers, boost sales, and build brand loyalty.
While the traditional "seven Ps" (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and presentation) create the marketing framework, today's connected shopping environment demands a unified commerce approach, merging online and in-store experiences into one seamless strategy.
The retail marketing mix matters because:
- It gives stores a clear plan to manage everything from product selection to pricing strategies.
- It ensures your message stays the same everywhere—like social media and physical stores.
- It helps deliver personalized retail experiences no matter where customers shop.
In other words: the retail marketing mix and unified commerce create the foundation for retail success. It helps you adapt to market changes quickly, create smooth shopping experiences, and grow your brand effectively, no matter where customers find you.
The 7 Ps of retailing
Marketing used to focus on four main things: product, price, place, and promotion. Now, we use seven key elements that better fit today's shopping world. Let's break them down in simple terms:
- Product: What you sell to customers
- Price: How much you charge for it
- Place: Where people can buy from you (stores, websites, apps)
- Promotion: How you tell people about what you sell
- People: Your staff and the customers they help
- Process: How you get things done behind the scenes
- Presentation: How your brand looks and feels everywhere
1. Products
Your product is what you sell and how it meets customer needs. Understanding what you general stock (product lines) and specific items (features, selling points, competitors, and possible customer objections) you sell helps you market them better.
Products are the core of your retail business. But managing them across sales channels like your website, social media, and physical stores can be overwhelming. A centralized inventory management system, like the one found in Shopify, keeps all your product details, item numbers, and prices in one spot. Update it once and it changes everywhere, so customers always see the right information.
Plus, with Shopify’s unified commerce platform, you can use the same quality pictures and descriptions on all channels to strengthen your brand and build customer trust. You get one source of truth for everything inventory-related. It’s no wonder that retailers save 10+ hours per month on inventory management when they switch to Shopify.
2. Price
Your prices determine who will buy from you. Lower prices attract budget-conscious shoppers, while higher "luxury" prices attract those willing to spend more. Find a price that matches both your product's value and what your customers expect.
When shoppers find your brand in different places, seeing different prices can make them lose trust. Shopify's platform makes sure any price changes or discounts show up automatically in your physical stores, online shop, and social media. And if you want to run a quick sale, you can start it instantly everywhere, then go back to normal prices without technical problems.
3. Place
Being anywhere your customers prefer to shop—both online and in person—is essential in today's retail world.Make the “place” aspect of your retail marketing mix possible by connecting your point of sale (POS) system with your online store to see all your stock in one view. This prevents selling items you don't have and eliminates manual counting.
Because Shopify is the only platform to natively build POS and ecommerce on the same platform, retailers can offer "buy anywhere, get anywhere” experiences. Customers can look online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), or have items shipped from any store location. It’s this approach that’s helped retailers such as Parachute increase BOPIS revenue by 5x.
“With Shopify POS, we now have a single point of truth for our inventory, which makes everything flow much more smoothly,” says Parachute’s founder Ariel Kaye.
4. Promotion
Promotion involves telling customers about your products and convincing them to buy, including marketing, advertising, and in-store displays.
Evaluate your messaging (like "50% off" vs. "buy one, get one free"), online marketing, and how products are presented in-store. Simple changes in wording or which channels you use can greatly affect your results.
Retailers report approximately 3% increase in GMV on average from improved marketing effectiveness through unified customer data. But you need a way to coordinate this data across all channels.
With Shopify, you can collect first-party data and feed it back to a unified profile for each customer. Then launch retail campaigns across social media, your website, and in-store, and track results from a single dashboard. Quickly identify which promotions drive the most sales, so you can do more of what's working—or improve campaigns that aren't performing well.
💡Tip:Shopify Analytics shows a detailed breakdown of how you acquire customers, which products perform best, and which campaigns have the highest conversion rates across every sales channel. And it’s baked into every POS plan as standard.
5. People
The “people” aspect of the retail marketing mix includes both your employees (cashiers, sales staff, managers) and external partners (suppliers, maintenance workers, marketing agencies) who help run your business.
How you hire, train, and support these people greatly affects the quality of customer experience. Give staff the right tools, and customers will notice the difference.
With Shopify, for example, staff only need to learn one system for inventory, sales, and customer management. They can also consult the POS system to view a shopper's purchase history, preferences, and loyalty status at a glance, helping staff provide more personalized service. This results in approximately 21% lower training and onboarding costs.
“We were able to train in a sandbox environment for a month and a half prior to the launch to allow our team to get used to the system,” says Kate Knecht, owner and operator of Tomlinson’s, on the brand’s migration to Shopify. “I was able to ‘soft launch’ our production environment a week prior to going live so stores could test building carts and work out any kinks. That was a huge help.”
6. Process
Process describes the entire journey a product takes from manufacturing to your customer—both behind the scenes (supply chain, logistics) and in-store (merchandising, sales interactions).
Behind every successful retail business is an efficient workflow. Separate systems can slow you down and increase costs.
A unified approach brings processes like inventory updates, accounting, and customer data into one platform. This avoids what Shopify's VP of engineering Patrick Joyce calls “fragmentation tax”: the dangerous combination of technical overhead, operational friction, business drag, and innovation deficit.
Less manual work and fewer separate systems free up money to invest in growth—so much so, research shows retailers using Shopify see:
- 22% drop in total cost of ownership.
- 34% lower data migration and transition costs.
- 20% faster implementation time on average than competitors surveyed.
7. Presentation
The packaging and the overall curb appeal of your business—inlcuidnf elements such as store design, cleanliness, and window displays—can influence sales. Smart visual merchandising can also trigger impulse buys and enhance perceived value.
If you’re an omnichannel retailer, also think about how your products are presented online. Shopify's easy-to-use website builder helps maintain a consistent look across your online store and in-store displays. Change your theme for holiday promotions, new products, and brand updates without needing extensive technical work.
Retail mix considerations
Understanding each of these areas, and how they work together, is the base of successful retail. That said, there are some considerations to keep in mind.
Target audience and positioning
Know who you're selling to and build everything around them. Use Shopify's customer data collection tools to learn what your customers buy. Then, use this information to improve your products and messaging.
Make sure everything matches your target market. For example, if you sell to college students on a budget, your whole store should feel affordable. If you sell luxury items, create an experience that feels high-end.
Budget and ROI
Successful retailers put more money toward what works best—whether that's ads, better staff training, or making checkout easier. Save money by using one system (like Shopify) for everything. This cuts down on extra costs and gives you a clearer picture of how your business is doing, which helps you make more money in the long run.
Retail marketing mix examples
Venus et Fleur: Luxury florals that last
Venus et Fleur sells high-end flowers, including Eternity® roses that stay fresh for up to a year. Yet their main retail challenge was handling multiple sales channels while keeping their luxury customer service.
By using Shopify for online sales, store sales, and social media sales, Venus et Fleur keeps all inventory and customer information updated in real time. No matter whether someone buys online or in a store, staff can immediately see each customer's order history and preferences in the POS system.
Plus, Venus et Fleur delivers for birthdays, anniversaries, and special events. Their custom Shopify calendar helps manage these orders, sends automatic reminders, and coordinates sales promotions across all channels.
The impact of the switch to unified commerce is clear:
- Between 10-15% year-over-year increase in ecommerce average order value (AOV) over the past three years.
- 15% higher average order value (AOV) from Shop App customers compared to those purchasing through the website.
- 12% reduction in abandoned checkouts with addition of custom checkout calendar.
“With Shopify, we can manage ecommerce, retail, and social commerce data in one place, providing the comprehensive view and control over the business that we need," says Brendan Gorman, the brand’s head of ecommerce.
Mizzen+Main - Innovative men’s clothing
Mizzen+Main created moisture-wicking, wrinkle-resistant dress shirts and casual clothes. After starting online-only, they opened 11 retail stores so customers could feel their performance fabrics.
Mizzen+Main switched to Shopify POS in all locations to connect online and in-store experiences. It got access to unified customer profiles, combined inventory tracking, and synchronized discounts and loyalty programs across all channels.
Plus, with Shopify POS, store staff can immediately see a customer's online purchases and loyalty points. This helps them suggest products that match the customer's existing preferences.
The results of this retail marketing mix speak for themselves:
- 27% retail revenue growth year-over-year, thanks to improved omnichannel approach.
- Simpler operations with real-time inventory management and unified discounting.
- Better customer loyalty because staff can offer personalized recommendations that connect online shopping with in-store experience.
“Our online promotions absolutely drive in-store sales and vice-versa,” says VP of ecommerce Natalie Shaddick. “When we advertise our promotions, we always highlight them being available online and in-store, and we see a huge spike in retail traffic and sales at the same time as ecommerce, so we know the two channels are talking to each other.”
Good American
Co-founded by Khloe Kardashian and Emma Grede, Good American makes clothes famous for including all sizes and promoting body positivity. Starting online, they added physical stores so customers could touch and try their products.
Good American upgraded its stores by using Shopify POS. This lets them track inventory in real time while using existing online data for better customer insights.
To handle different sizes, inventory variations, and high sales volume, Good American connected Shopify with NetSuite ERP. All orders, returns, and inventory changes automatically sync across channels, reducing errors and operational problems.
Results included:
- 20% lower return rate in stores vs. online, showing that personalized fitting reduces returns.
- Very high customer satisfaction (NPS of 91.69), driven by consistent data visibility and smooth transitions between channels.
- Unified data flow between ERP and POS, reducing manual work and freeing the team to focus on new products and marketing.
“With Shopify, there is so much money and development effort saved by utilizing a system that can take care of retail and ecommerce,” says VP of technology Edwin Portillo. “I think that’s the beauty of it.”
Get your retail mix right with Shopify POS
Shopify POS helps you handle all parts of the retail marketing mix in one place. It brings together your products, prices, locations, promotions, people, processes, and store look in a single system that's easy to use. Staff can quickly help customers with the right information, while you keep track of inventory and sales across all your channels in one centralized business “brain.”
In other words: with Shopify ,you get one source of truth for your entire business, reducing costs and complexity while helping you grow.
