So your company has a team who performs store visits? Big whoop. Can you confidently say these visits are the best they could possibly be? Your company pours resources into creating innovative products, compelling displays, targeted promotions, and refining the 4 P’s until they are perfect. These are major strategic investments, so why have your hard work fall apart at the last step in the process – implementation at your retailers?
Are your store visits underperforming? Know the signs. Answer these questions to determine if your store audits are falling flat:
- How Do Reps Check Store Compliance? Start with the basics. How do they recall product lines, prices and in-store placements and how each varies by retailer and season? That’s a lot for a rep to remember, and we’ve only reached number one on this list. Are your reps simply recording this information or do they have tools to tell them if a shelf placement is wrong or if a price listing is slightly off? You have the rep in-store, why not remedy every compliance issue then and there instead of waiting to report the issue in hopes they’ll remember to resolve it during their next visit?
The Sign: Your reps rely primarily on memory or paper to conduct compliance checks.
- How Do They Pitch New Products? How many reps have memorized your entire product catalog? How long does it take to educate your team on a new product? Give your reps a tool that proactively suggests products based on the information captured about a store’s performance and interests.
The Sign: Your reps don’t have a smart product catalog at their finger-tips telling them which products to pitch and why.
- How Do They Recommend New Promotions? Your merchandising and trade promotion teams have invested in consumer research, forecasting, and predictive modeling to design the most effective promotions for each product or store. Can your reps confirm a few details for a retail location and then easily access all applicable promotion sell sheets?
The Sign: Your reps don’t have a clear, accurate way of identifying a promotional opportunity, along with access to promotion details and potential returns for the retailer.
- How Are They Evaluating Display Opportunities? Secondary displays can do wonders to move more product. But not all displays are created equal. Between end cap displays, checkout displays, open floor space, and everything in between, are you expecting your field team to accurately identify an opportunity and recommend the best display? If store visit reps don’t propose the ideal display for the right space, your company is missing out on a key opportunity.
The Sign: You assume reps will assess the retail landscape, recognize opportune display space and then propose the ideal solution based on their own process and memory.
- How Are They Gathering Competitive Insights? Regardless of your stake in the market, every strategy, promotion, product line and forecast is impacted by your competitors. Store visit reps are your most valuable assets on the front lines collecting the data you need to compete. So how are your reps gathering timely, accurate competitive information from each store? Is it helping you understand your company’s competitive landscape week after week and month after month?
The Sign: You don’t have a defined process or an easy way to collect competitive data and make it available for reporting and analysis.
Want to improve your store visits? Check out Youreka’s Retail Execution Solution:
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