What to Look for in Merchandising Companies

Making your way in the retail world can be tough – but doing it properly can mean the difference between whether you sink or swim. Making sure that your customers are getting the best retail experience possible is crucial. The role of merchandising companies is to combat this and increase your brand recognition and brand loyalty. But what should you be looking for in merchandising companies to ensure that you are working with the right one? 

There are several criteria that you should look for when seeking out merchandising companies and enlisting their services. Make sure that they provide: 

National coverage - Working with merchandising companies who offer national coverage is very important and for different reasons. Typically merchandising companies who offer national coverage have experience working with national brands which bodes to a merchandising company’s credibility. Also, if you sell a brand nation-wide it is important to look for merchandising companies that can accommodate you nationally because this will greatly reduce cost and confusion, providing you with a single point of contact. Another reason seeking out merchandising companies that offer national coverage is important is because they are there to support your growth.

A skilled team – Merchandising companies that offer a highly skilled team is important. Whether the service you need is merchandising, distribution support or an experiential marketing campaign, a major benefit to working with good merchandising companies is that their staff have a high level of expertise in the retail industry so there needn't be a substantial learning curve. Working with an experienced and skilled team means that your projects will run smoothly and more efficiently.

A wide range of services – This is huge because working with merchandising companies who offer a wide range of services will mean that you don’t have to look far for help when a project comes up. This often keeps costs down and makes it easier to implement your projects. Merchandising companies who offer a wide range of services should offer services that include: merchandising services, experiential marketing, retail intelligence, staff support and emergency response services.

So how can you evaluate merchandising companies to choose the right one?

1.       First, look at the company’s case studies. What types of brands do they work with? What types of projects have they worked on that have had successful outcomes?

2.       Check references. Ask for references and call them. When contacting references, inquire about bumps that may have occurred on a project and how the merchandising company overcame challenges.

3.       Check their social presences. Look them up on LinkedIn and see how active they are in social media. This will give you insight into the culture at the merchandising company and reviewing the content they release will attest to the depth of their expertise.

There are many different merchandising companies available out there that may promise you quick results. However, the right one needs to employ an effective strategy that involves a multi-pronged approach to retail merchandising. The criteria listed here are crucial if you want your brand to be successful at retail.

For more information about merchandising companies, what they can offer, and how to choose the best, please contact Storesupport at 877-421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Forbes Online Reports on How the Customer Experience In-Store Now Matters More with the Uptake in Consumers Shopping Online

Online e-commerce sites like Amazon have given retailers who sell their product in retail stores a real run for their money. From clothing retail to the sale of consumer packaged goods at retail, the online shopping boom has forever changed the way many people shop. For brands that only have in-store retail coverage, sites like grocery gateway and netgrocer are posing a major threat, leaving brands needing to be more aggressive at the point of purchase to capture and retain customers.

What commonly causes consumers to switch their allegiance to online retailers?

1.       The online shopping experience in many ways increases convenience. Consumers don’t have to leave their homes, shop in congested stores or wait in line ups.

2.       Online shopping usually results in increased product availability. Online there are no shelves to go out of stock. If a product is listed, you can get it. 

Forbes Online recently reported in an article “Clicks and Mortar: Why In-Store Experience Matters” that it is more important than ever for brands to ensure that customers have a positive in-store brand experience.

There are limitations to online shopping that leave brands that sell in bricks and mortar retail stores a massive opportunity to compete. These limitations include:

1.       Removal of social interaction – both with those you shop with and the interactions you have with others when out and about.

2.       The inability so see, touch and smell products that you are thinking about purchasing.

3.       Takes longer to receive products – you have to wait for your products to be delivered.

4.       Where grocery shopping is concerned it is often more expensive. 

 

The Forbes Online article highlights the importance of brands and bricks and mortar retailers not to shy away from mobile and social media and to look at mobile and social media as ways to drive customers through the door. Creating online communities of brand loyal customers who can share their positive customer experiences can influence the buying habits of others in their social network. Embracing mobile apps to make the customer’s in-store experience smoother is a great way to boost loyalty. In the Forbes Online article Target was mentioned as an innovator who has created apps with list-making tools, product finders, daily deals and more.

The retail store is the ultimate advertising opportunity for brands. Leveraging experiential marketing campaigns is an excellent way to engage new customers through providing them with the opportunity to sample product which in almost all cases results in a boost in product sales. Let’s face it, employees in retail stores work for the retailer. They are busy and do not have the depth of product knowledge that your staff does. Experiential marketing helps you to improve the experience that customers have with your brand by allowing the opportunity to interact with your representatives, ask questions and be more informed about your offerings.

With regard to the employees of the retailer, another huge way to take more control over your customer’s experience with your brand is to take more control over your merchandising and distribution. Having your own feet on the ground will enable you to ensure that product is always in stock, on the shelf, planogram compliant and properly priced. This will mean that your customers will always have the smoothest possible experience when being faced with the choice to purchase your product or someone else’s.

Once a customer is in-store – what occurs at the point of sale is critical. By working to ensure the best customer experiences will increase brand loyalty and the probability that a customer will venture off to the store to buy your product, as opposed to buying a competitor’s product online.

For more information about how you can improve your customers experience through our merchandising services please contact Storesupport at 1(877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

JD Power and Associates Substantiates the Importance of Mystery Shopping Through the 2012 Market Research Bulletin – Information is Power

Retail intelligence is one of the only ways that brands can find out what their customers are experiencing when they visit retail outlets. Most national brands have mechanisms in place to gather consumer information. We have long advocated mystery shopping as the best way to gather this information and a recent research bulletin from JD Power and Associates backs up this position. 

The 2012 JD Power and Associates Market Research Bulletin “Information is Power” looked at some common methods that organizations are using to gather and analyze consumer information and feedback.

In the JD Power and Associates summary, one critical point that is made is that getting the “right” information means “asking,” “listening,” and “watching,” and that gathering the “right” information is key to achieving market differentiation and sustainable growth in a competitive environment.

In the paper, mystery shopping was identified as the central means to watch what customers are doing and experiencing when having an interaction or dealing with a brand. Mystery shopping is by far the most effective way to watch what occurs at the retail level because it gives brands a window into the direct experiences that their customer is having and how they feel about their experience.

Mystery shopping is by far the most effective when administered by a third party. Brands that hire a third party to facilitate mystery shopping are able to receive impartial data that reflects the true happenings at the retail level based on the criteria provided to them.

Mystery shopping can not only be deployed to learn more about your customers but also to learn more about how retailers are managing your brand’s presence at the retail level. This is almost more important than gathering direct customer feedback because in many cases the way that a retailer manages your brand’s presence directly impacts how a customer feels about their experience when purchasing or trying to purchase your products.

Here are some examples:

1.       You sell diapers and your diapers are on sale. A customer attends a retailer and is looking for the best deal on diapers. The retailer was delayed tagging your product as being on sale, resulting in the customer choosing to purchase a different diaper brand because it appears to be the best deal.

a.       Impact to customer – very little because they didn’t even have an opportunity to learn that your product was on sale.

b.      Cost to you – loss of business and an opportunity to have leveraged your sale price to shift brand loyalty to your product

2.       You sell pasta sauce. A loyal customer attends the grocery store to pick up some groceries. They plan to prepare a pasta dinner, a staple in their recipe being your sauce. When they attend the retailer it appears as though your sauce is sold out. Really, more of your sauce is available in the back but the retailer’s employee hasn’t gotten around to restocking the shelf. The customer is in a hurry and decides to purchase a different brand of sauce.

a.       Impact to your customer – a frustrating experience.

b.      Cost to you – loss of business and an opportunity to have leveraged your sale price to shift brand loyalty to your product

3.       You sell beans. A loyal customer attends the grocery store to find that they have moved some products. Some beans, including yours, have been moved to the international isle while others remain with the other beans and corn. Your customer is unable to find your product, and ends up searching for help. They encounter an employee at the retailer who is unaware of where your product is and assumed it was where it always is placed. After spending 20 minutes looking around your customer manages to find your product.

a.       Impact to your customer – a frustrating experience.

b.      Cost to you – in this case you would have been lucky because most customers will not search for your product and will simply shift loyalty.

These types of issues cannot be identified unless you have boots on the ground and the best way to become aware of these types of very common occurrences that can be devastating to a brand is to invest in mystery shopping.

Leveraging the techniques (that includes mystery shopping) addressed in the JD Power and Associates 2012 Market Research Bulletin “Information is Power” will enable you to identify areas within your business that you can strengthen to increase retention, profitability and business growth.

For more information about mystery shopping or for more information about our mystery shopping services please contact Storesupport at 1(877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Customer Loyalty and Customer Retention Study - Grocery Store Industry Lags Behind Other Retail Sectors

Customer loyalty and customer retention continue to be two of the cornerstones of a brand being successful in the consumer packaged goods industry and becoming a household name. A recent study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value titled “Why Advocacy Matters to Grocers” has revealed some startling statistics about how customer retention and customer loyalty is lagging behind other retail sectors.  

In the study, consumers reported that they felt widespread dissatisfaction with their primary grocer. In fact, 73% said that they have no loyalty to their supermarket whatsoever which is not a good thing for brands that don’t have wide retail coverage. Only 27% of the customers indicated that they were advocates of their grocery store.

The whole premise around establishing customer loyalty leading to customer retention is to transition a prospect from being a loyal customer to being an advocate. Advocates recommend retailers and brands to others and influence others’ purchasing habits. Because they are advocates, they are also more loyal and more likely not to easily shift their loyalty away from their retailer or brand.

46% of the people polled identified that they have a poor attitude toward their grocer and may be actively causing damage to their grocer’s reputation through sharing their negative thoughts and opinions with others. This is dangerous in a digital age because social media and mobile increase the speed at which words spread and can be detrimental to a business.

Customers surveyed placed a high value on the quality of products sold by retailers, selection of products, availability of products, employee customer service and social responsibility. Specialty stores performed better in the survey because of their focus on customer service, product selection and quality, and a whopping 46% of customers polled were advocates of these specialty stores.

The study revealed that 31% of customers tell multiple other people about their bad experiences and 48% of customers avoid stores based on bad experiences that other people have had.

What does this mean to you? Well, if you represent a brand that offers consumer packaged goods products that are sold in grocery stores or you represent a retailer it is clear that customers who are having a negative experience on the front lines will not only stop doing business with you but will likely impact others’ decisions to shop at your store.

Brands that do not have widespread retail coverage are at great risk because, if their products are being sold at retailers who are not providing a positive customer experience, their brands are likely to lose exposure to many consumers as they decide not to shop at those retailers.

So if you offer a product that is sold in grocery stores how can you impact the customer’s experience at the retail level? There are many things that are out of your control, such as wait times, the store offering a wide range of products in different categories and the customer service that they provide to their customers. What you can control is your brand’s presence at the retail level.

Product availability was a big cause of dissatisfaction for those polled in this survey. You can improve product availability by making the necessary investment in your product merchandising at retailers. You can work with merchandising companies to ensure that your product is always in stock, on the shelf, where your customer expects to find it and properly tagged. You can also run experiential marketing campaigns to give customers more intimate and direct engagement with your brand through product samplings, tastings, demonstrations, and even by having a representative there to share information about your brand and offer coupons.

The stakes are too high for brands that sell in grocery retailers to leave themselves in a position where they are counting on the retailer to deliver a positive customer experience each time.  Empower yourself to improve your own customer retention and brand loyalty by investing in your customers’ experiences with your brand.

For more information about customer loyalty and customer retention or for more information about our experiential marketing solutions please contact Storesupport at 1(877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Case Study Supports How Experiential Marketing Can be a Game Changer

Experiential marketing is proving to be the most effective form of in-store marketing in the consumer packaged goods industry. The reason that experiential marketing is proving to be a game changer is because it allows consumers to get to know your brand through first-hand experience. 

The most successful experiential marketing campaigns involve a sampling of your product through live demonstration, packaged sampling and through discounts/coupons incenting customers to purchase and try your product at a reduced price. 

A recent case study conducted by Activia provides good evidence to support why brands have big benefits to gain by engaging in experiential marketing.

In the case study, Activia underwent a sampling campaign promoting their Danone Shake Up Breakfast product. Their sampling campaign took place at key retailers over a three week period. The experiential marketing campaign leveraged highly visual communication tools to interrupt shoppers and entice them to try the product.

Through the experiential marketing campaign over 123,000 samples were distributed. This resulted in more than 180,000 people being exposed to the Activia brand and Danone Shake Up Breakfast product. The experiential marketing campaign resulted in increased uplifts of approx. 300% - 2000% per/day. What was even more interesting was that 57% of visitors said that they had never considered trying the product before trying the sample. What is compelling is that 60% of customers who tried the sample left the store not only loving the product but also indicating that they were extremely likely to purchase the product in the future.

One of the key reasons that this experiential marketing campaign was so successful was because Activia used an experiential marketing company to facilitate it. Experiential marketing is a science and should always be facilitated through companies who are experienced in experiential marketing.

There are several ingredients to a successful experiential marketing recipe, these include:

·         A strong plan – what do you want to achieve through your experiential marketing campaign?

·         Metrics to track outcomes – how will you track the results?

·         Creative communications – how will you entice shoppers to stop what they are doing and participate in your experiential marketing campaign?

·         An enticing offer – how will you deliver the experience to your customer (samples, product demonstrations, coupons, etc.)?

·         Who will deliver your message – Having the right representatives is key and having enough skilled representation to execute an effective experiential marketing campaign that has good retail coverage will be very important.

It is very important that your campaign includes representatives at the retail level who are skilled in experiential marketing. A customer who stops and engages you is not only having an experience with your product but also with your company. Representatives that represent you at the store level must be outgoing, friendly, professional, engaging and very knowledgeable about your products.

Experiential marketing truly is proving to be a game changer and a worthy investment for those who want to compete more aggressively in-store. By having a good recipe for your experiential marketing campaign and a good experiential marketing company to support it, it is bound to be a success.

For more information about experiential marketing or for more information about our experiential marketing solutions please contact Storesupport at 1(877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Retailers Give Preference to In-store Brands Through Retail Merchandising

Private labels have been immersed in a battle to compete with store brands in the consumer packaged goods space for many different reasons. This represents a huge challenge to B and C level brands. 

Store brands are more competitive than ever, offering lower prices on the backs of the brands that they compete with. In addition to lower pricing, better packaging, marketing campaigns and preferential retail merchandising has made is more difficult and more expensive than ever before to compete.

National brands with deep pockets are definitely better positioned to compete. Smaller B and C brands are in a vulnerable position and in a virtual war zone because they not only find themselves having to compete with the store brands but also with the national brands.

This is a real catch 22 because in order to sell product, private brands must maintain strong relationships with the very stores that have brands that they are competing with, and in some cases, even white label their products to. Without the retailers, brands don’t have a place to sell their products. Without strong sales, brands face having their products de-prioritized and even de-listed.

If you represent a brand, you know that you pay big bucks to have your products listed with retailers. Retailers who sell their own brands give preference to the retail merchandising of their brands which means that private brands must make a more assertive effort to control their retail merchandising at the retail level.

When a retailer gives preferential retail merchandising to their brands, what does this mean for you?

It means that they see better product placement and more effort is made to see that that product is properly priced, in stock and on the shelves.

The only way B and C brands can compete in this environment is to make more of an investment in the customer’s experience through increasing their investment in retailmerchandising at the point of purchase to ensure customer retention and customer loyalty.

So how can you do this? By knowing where you stand at the retail level at all times and having eyes on the ground at the retailers. When customers are in-store the three most common reasons that they shift brand loyalty are when products are moved, when products are not properly priced and when products are not on the shelves.

If you represent a smaller private brand you can work with retail merchandising companies to come up with a plan to ensure that your product is where you expect it to be, is not in stock but not on the shelf, is not out of stock or is not improperly priced. This could include scheduled visits by the retail merchandising company to ensure that your in-store presence is in order. Retail merchandising companies can be provided with your product so if it is out of stock, they can place more product in-store. If product is sold out on the shelf, they can go into the stockroom and place more product on the shelf. If your product has been moved, you will be made aware of it and they can even correct incorrect pricing.

These small changes can make an incredible difference in your sales. When customers visit the retailer, your product will consistently be available to them. When other brands see their products sell out now you are in a position to shift the customers’ loyalty to you because you not only offer great product but your brand is reliable.

For more information about how you can compete with store brands or for more information about our retail merchandising solutions please contact Storesupport at 1(877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca.

Ipsos Survey Reveals That Store Brands Are Surpassing National Private Brands Through Improved Brand Positioning

It’s no secret that private brands and store brands continue to be in staunch competition at the retail level and that the customers’ experiences at the point of sale remain critical. 

New statistics released by an Ipsos Marketing survey that has been conducted annually over the past three years, revealed that private brands will need to step up their game if they want to avoid being overtaken by in-store brands. The Ipsos survey asked consumers to compare store brands to national brands in many different areas.  The survey revealed that: 

·         Since 2009, the majority of consumers perceived store brands to be equivalent and in many cases better than national brands.

·         From 2009 to 2010, store brands slipped in all areas including value, convenience and meeting the needs of the customer.

·         From 2010 to 2011, store brands gained ground in consumers’ minds with regard to quality, innovativeness, uniqueness and packaging. 

“It is really not that surprising that consumer perceptions toward store brand quality, innovativeness, uniqueness and packaging have improved. Retailers are investing more heavily into the development and merchandising of their store brands,” summarized Gill Aitchison, President, Ipsos Marketing, Global Shopper & Retail Research.

 

Customer loyalty and retention is what will make or break the success of any brand. One vital component of effective merchandising is ensuring the best customer experience. Filling gaps at the retail level to increase customer retention of those who are already loyal to your brand should be a top priority. The most common reasons a loyal customer will shift their loyalty from one brand to another brand are: price, quality of product and product accessibility.

“Our data indicates that store brands still pose a formidable threat to national brands – perhaps now more than ever,” Aitchison says.

Outside of offering a quality product and unique packaging, if national brands want to gain ground on the very competitive store brands they will have to ensure that when the customer is shopping, that their products are easy to find, in a consistent place, with prices tagged, in-stock and on the shelves.

In an extremely competitive retail environment, when a product is out of stock or has been moved, customers often don’t have the time or patience and will simply try the next, most comparable brand available. This is dangerous because if they like the new product, their loyalty could shift permanently. This why merchandising is key for private label brands, which includes ensuring that sufficient resources are in place to make sure that inaction on the part of the retailer is not resulting in a shift in customer loyalty because products are not accessible.

Many private brands do not have the same level of in-store merchandising support that the store brands do. This is why it is so important for private brands to invest in merchandising support services or risk being over taken by the less expensive and more competitive store brands.

This trend does not seem to be subsiding, so it is crucial that private label brands reinforce their point of differential in order to win over the shopper and influence their buying habits and regain the position as far as strongest sales.

Aitchison concluded by saying that “National brands must now battle store brands on all fronts – it’s not just a value game anymore. National brands must vehemently protect their image for providing higher-quality and more innovative products than store brands. With retailers focusing more on the product development and marketing of store brands, national brands are going to need to work even harder to differentiate their brands with breakthrough innovations, more standout packaging and true product superiority. Bringing in the voice of the consumer, digging for deeper consumer insights, and leveraging leading-edge marketing techniques will be instrumental to winning over the shopper at the critical moment of point of purchase in order to win the ongoing battle against store brands”.

If you would like information about cutting edge merchandising solutions that could drive your brand at retail ensuring the best customer experience please contact Storesupport at 1 (877) 421-5081 or visit www.storesupport.ca. To read the full press release, us this link http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5612 .