Getting Control of your Product Distribution and Retail Merchandising Over the Holiday Season

We all know how busy the holidays get at retail, and we all know how detrimental maintaining good customer service best practices are. For a brand at retail, keeping the customer happy is crucial, especially with regard to product distribution and retail merchandising. 

We have all heard those retail merchandising holiday horror stories that illustrate just how “fun” holiday shopping can be – but if you are a brand located in a retail environment, you know that keeping control of your product distribution and retail merchandising over the holiday season is critical for your bottom line. 

For example, it is undeniable that the holiday season often results in empty shelves or un-stocked product. So how can you combat this? Working with a merchandising company can help you deal with your holiday product distribution woes. By providing access to staff that can navigate the retail space and ensure your product is located on the shelf and accessible to clients helps to alleviate the stress of dealing with holiday hardships. Regular run-throughs ensure that retailers are not letting your product distribution fall to the wayside during the holiday rush, meaning your bottom line does not suffer from distribution issues.

Also important is making sure that there IS stock in the back. If a customer comes in during the holiday season looking for your brand only to find it out of stock, they often have no choice but to switch brands. Working with a merchandising company can help eliminate this by sending consultants to retail to ensure product distribution is up to date and that sufficient product exists in the storeroom.

Yet another important part of product distribution and retail merchandising during the holiday season – pricing. With so many sales taking place over the holidays, sometimes your brand pricing may be lost in the shuffle. If a customer comes in looking for the best deal and your product has not be marked down as you expected, this could result in lost sales or lost customer loyalty. Working with a merchandising company eliminates this by sending out consultants to check pricing and product placement. Ensuring that prices are marked down may not be a retailer’s top priority, but it is yours, and thus it becomes the top priority for your merchandising company.

Another issue that arises during the holidays to negatively impact product distribution and retail merchandising is having too few staff on hand to handle customers’ needs. We all know how difficult it can be to find help at retail during the busy holiday season, but think about the impact of this if you are a brand at retail. Enlisting the services of an experienced merchandising company that can provide the staffing necessary to keep up the customer experience will allow you to ensure that your brand is receiving the recognition it needs and that your loyal customers remain happy.

Even during the holidays – or especially during them – it is critical to keep customers happy to maintain customer loyalty and brand recognition. It does not take much for a customer to switch brands if they feel ‘wronged’ by a brand that they were previously loyal to.

For more information about product distribution and retail merchandising over the holiday season, or at any point during the year, please contact Storesupport at 1 (877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.