Retail Review: Post-Holiday Stats – What to Take From These Numbers

The reports have only been out for a few weeks now, but it is clear that the end of the year was stellar as far as sales. The predictions for the holiday season were good, and clearly the outlook matched the output.

Check out this recent article from the Huffington Post, “Holiday Cross-Border Shopping Down, Canadian Sales Up, Retail Council Says”.  In it, numbers for the 2014 holiday season suggest a strong 2015 - which is never a bad thing for retailers.

Here are some post-holiday stats and a few other highlights from the article:

• According to Canada’s largest processor of debit and credit card payments, sales were up this year overall.
• Comparing the last Saturday before Christmas for both 2013 and 2014, this year’s numbers were far better: amount per transaction up 10% this year, and total dollars spent increased by approximately 4-5% for 2014.
• First two weeks of December 2014 saw an increase of 5.6% compared to 2013.

Thanks to a number of different factors, including the price of gas and the value of the Canadian dollar, Canadians also did far less shopping across the border compared to 2013 - which is great. Less competition from our southern neighbours means a greater chance of sales on home turf.

Less competition, coupled with the recent space being vacated by a big box giant, equals both pros and cons for all Canadian retailers - both big box and bricks and mortar mom and pop shops. The right marketing can both take advantage of the opportunity this represents and help deal with the competition.

For more post-holiday stats or to improve your merchandising strategy, please contact Storesupport today by calling 1-877-421-5081. 

Knowledge is Power: How Do You Handle Retail Intelligence?

In the consumer packaged goods industry, knowledge really is power. Knowing what your customers want, and delivering the goods (literally), is a major part of the retail game. So, do you really know what's happening in the store? For brands in the retail environment, retail intelligence has become a vital source for information about how your brand is performing, and why.

Retail intelligence is a really critical part of any marketing and merchandising strategy. Garnering customer feedback and analysing and responding to this feedback is essential, but retail intelligence goes well beyond this. What are we talking about here? Here are just a few examples of the types of retail intelligence you should be considering.

-        Competitive pricing. Is your product at the right price point? Is your competitor’s product priced lower than your product, even when not on sale? If you are seeing a drop in sales, this information may prove incredibly useful in understanding why. On the other hand, if your product is priced significantly lower than the competition, this may symbolize an opportunity for increased sales.

-        Employee behaviour. Is your retailer’s staff engaged with your brand? Are they knowledgeable about your product, or are they endorsing your competitors product? These questions are really important when it comes to brand loyalty and brand reputation.

-        Quality assurance. You work hard to create great in store promotions and retail displays based on consumer analytics – so you have to make sure that these displays are being located correctly on the store floor, stocked well, regularly, and only with your product. Are prices accurate, are promotional items visible and available? This knowledge can help you to ensure that your deliverables are all being met.

-        Adjacency studies. Not only do you want to know what your product is doing in-store, you also need to be up-to-date on the competition. Getting information about where your brand is located on the shelf in relation to your competitor’s, what is their brand messaging is, and how their brand is treated can really help increase your own positioning.

When it comes to locating your brand at retail, make sure that you are aware of exactly what is going on on the store floor. Not only is this an intelligent way to ensure you are targeting consumers correctly, it also helps to ensure that your brand is receiving the treatment it needs.

For more about a retail intelligence campaign please contact Storesupport Canada by calling 905.847.6513. 

Achieving Retail Compliance with Your Visual Merchandising Strategy

As a brand, you are no doubt aware of the power of visual merchandising. When you can catch a consumer’s attention and encourage them to buy, your display has done its job and you are reaping the hoped-for benefits. But effective visual merchandising takes time and money, and isn’t as simple as throwing together a stand and hoping for the best.

Furthermore, when you take the time to develop a visual merchandising plan, it never pays to set it up and forget about it. Brands: you know what we are talking about. Spending the time and resources to establish a merchandising strategy only to leave it in the hands of a retailer is often a recipe for disaster. There is no telling what can happen to a display that is left unattended at a retail location, and we often hear of brands who have visited a store to find their display moved, empty, or even worse, filled with a competitor’s product. When this happens, there is no way to know how your sales have been impacted, and no way to recoup any losses because of a retailer’s actions.

Yes, we are aware that there is a certain level of dependency that is inevitable when you list a brand at retail. You can’t be there 24/7 to ensure your visual merchandising is being utilized and managed correctly. But you do have options – you don’t just have to sit idly by.

So, what can you do? Aside from setting up a folding lawn chair and watching that display like a hawk (a solution that will likely get you hauled out by store security among other potential issues), a great way to ensure compliance is by enlisting the services of a retail merchandising company – one that can provide a dedicated resource to your brand. By performing regular visits to ensure proper placement compliance and checking to make sure that your display is well stocked, with your product, can give you peace of mind that comes with knowing what is going on on the store floor. With regular updates and reporting on what is going on, both positives and negatives, you can then take action when required.

Don’t just leave your visual merchandising in the hands of a retailer and hope that things will turn out ok. Keep track of their conduct and ensure compliance with the help of a visual merchandising company.

To learn more about how a visual merchandising company can help ensure that your displays are actually achieving what you want, and to reduce the level of dependency you currently deal with at the hand of your retailers, please contact Storesupport today by calling 1-877-421-5081.

Visual Merchandising: Mass Merchants Need Displays

When it comes to visual merchandising, we all know that having a plan in place is important – but how important is it? Do customers really pay that much attention? Can a visually striking display actually garner that much attention and increase sales? According to the 2014 Mass Merchant Study by Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI), yes, they can!

Discussing the Mass Merchant Study, an article on RetailWire made some important points. The study revealed some really interesting results as far as visual merchandising, and keeping these in mind the next time you sit down to re-establish or fine-tune your marketing strategy is probably a really smart idea.

Perhaps the most notable finding was that 82% of purchase decisions are made in-store. What does this mean for you? The article had this to say: “Consumers who shop at mass merchandisers make a lot of decisions about what they're going to buy at the shelf. Getting them to buy more has a lot to do with retailers' in-store media and display strategies and tactics.”

Additionally, according to the article, the study found that 34% of shoppers don’t rely on a shopping list. Again, this means far more opportunities for you to entice and attract.

Check out the full article here: http://www.retailwire.com/discussion/17334/mass-merchants-need-displays.

So, how can you take these stats and turn them into ROI? By implementing various strategies into your visual merchandising plan that yield real results. For more about how to get your in-store visual merchandising strategy up-to-snuff, please contact Storesupport today by calling 1-877-421-5081.

Canadian Consumer Trends – Does your Merchandising Strategy Measure Up?

When you develop a merchandising strategy with the thought of increasing your bottom line, the best way to start is by analyzing current consumer trends. A recent CBC report, “5 Canadian Consumer Trends to Shape the Future of Retail,” did just that by looking at what consumers want from their retailers. The Business Development Bank of Canada study found that “value-conscious Canadians want local, healthy, customized goods they can research online.”

The report outlines the top 5 consumer trends:

1.      Trend #1: The buy-local movement. According to the report, Canadian consumers are shopping close to home. In the past year, 45% of respondents reported buying locally-made Canadian products for both ethical and environmental reasons.

2.      Trend #2: Rising health awareness. Canadians as a whole are becoming more health conscious and their buying choices reflect that, especially when it comes to aging consumers. 50% of Canadians consider the health impacts when making a decision to buy, and one-third will pay a premium for products that are better for them.

3.      Trend #3: Frugality. Even as the economy continues to stabilize, for many Canadian households incomes remain stagnant and debt is still an issue for many individuals. With this in mind, many Canadian consumers report still being mindful of prices and cautious when it comes to spending. This is especially important when it comes to those retiring baby boomers living on fixed incomes.

4.      Trend #4: The desire for customized goods. So many customers are looking to purchase exactly what they want these days, and won’t settle for just anything. New technology has made it possible for them to make these purchases, so offering a variety of goods is a smart strategy to entice consumers.

5.      Trend #5: The impact of the internet. This one is huge, but even so, some retailers are still trying to ignore it. Consumers can now do an immense amount of research online before they finally make the decision to head in-store to buy. At the same time, online shopping continues to account for an increasingly large portion of consumer spending, so ignoring online sales all together is a bad idea.

These Canadian consumer trends are not exactly surprising, and for the most part these results correlate with things that have been happening over the past few years. With that said, they have grown in importance and as a retailer you can no longer ignore their impact.

For more about what the results of this study mean and how you can implement a plan to take advantage of them, please contact Storesupport today at 1-877-421-5081, or visit us online at www.storesupport.ca.

Check out the complete article here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/5-canadian-consumer-trends-to-shape-the-future-of-retail-1.2129072

The Days of Clips Boards Are Over! How Technology is Improving Brand Management

Staying Informed about your brand at retail is integral if you want to succeed. Effective brand management means keeping on top of product placement, restocking, and product movement. If you find yourself struggling to maintain control over your product, this can be a big problem – so how can you solve it? By leveraging merchandising technology and working with a merchandising company that employs this in their suite of merchandising services is key. 

According to a recent study done by The Parker Avery Institute, only 57% of retailers have a well-formed merchandising strategy, and these are the ones who experience 3% or better sales growth from year to year. Those that don’t have a well-defined brand management/merchandising strategy don’t see these results. Clearly there is something to be said for planning ahead.

What are the benefits that exist when you leverage merchandising technology as part of your brand management strategy?

1.       Speed. What if you sent out a planogram but are unsure whether or not it was executed properly? What if you see that your product is not moving well compared to last month? Knowing the answers to these issues – in real time - is crucial for effective brand management. Merchandising companies that leverage merchandising technology can send out a rep and send you information, before and after pictures, and stock updates right from a mobile device.

2.       Accuracy. Using merchandising technology that uses a store’s ‘store data’ system to report on your brand means that no manual inputs are necessary – ensuring accuracy. The days of clip-boards are over, so relying on them instead of merchandising technology will put you at the bottom of the retail hierarchy!

3.       Competitiveness. Being aware of how the competition is performing is also a crucial part of effective brand management. Merchandising companies use merchandising technology to do this by comparing pricing (which again can be sent to you immediately), checking display execution, and gauging customer satisfaction. Get a leg up on the competition through effective brand management and merchandising technology.

4.       On Demand Access. By syncing store data to a web portal, you can have on demand access to reports and data mined by merchandising companies. Relying on updates from the store (if they will even provide them) can be costly and time consuming, so taking advantage of the services offered by merchandising companies that leverage merchandising technology for on demand access is a really smart idea.

Most of the big brand names leverage merchandising technology to ensure that they maintain control over their own brands. This doesn’t mean though that this kind of brand management has to be expensive. It is actually a smart way to achieve cost savings that allow you to stay in control and always be aware of what is taking place with your brand.

If you are having trouble controlling your product in-store, or if you just want to ramp up that marketing campaign, a merchandising company that leverages merchandising technology as a part of their merchandising services is the way to go. An effective brand management strategy should include technology which will ultimately make your life a lot easier.

For more information about leveraging merchandising technology for effective brand management, or any other merchandising services you may need, please contact Storesupport at 1-877-421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.