Battle for the Spotlight: Being the Best Brand on the Store Shelves

Every consumer-goods company treats one another as its greatest rival. Being on the same store shelf is always a do-or-die battle for each of these brands.  So, the CEO and the company’s strategy is very crucial in determining the best tactic to effectively deliver its finishing blow and stand-out to be the best brand on the store.

But as time goes by, surviving on the market becomes tougher for each company as more competitors arise. Making their strategies ineffective and constantly being under heavy pressure to make hasty but complex decisions which sometimes just make their situation worse. These often lead to them being pushed to the edge and left struggling to be on top.

The only way out is now left on being able to effectively regain control on the market. This is now the key to gain brand survival and growth.

But what could be the Holy Grail for the companies to succeed?

Knowing what and how your shoppers think can give you what an ideal store should look like in order to deliver the greatest results. This will be the basis of all the necessary materials along with all means and ways to attract and convince their buyer. This will also become their guide on each decision they have to make, from dealing with key accounts to monitoring and handling sales reps. This is what makes their marketing capacities and capabilities measurable and more controllable.

The secret now leads down to these three simple tricks:

For leading companies, every space and every angle in a store is a potential winning spot for their brand. But all they need is to effectively control the best spots that will give them an edge over all their rivals. Let’s use chewing gum for example, where could their best hotspot be? The answer is checkout counter-tops on supermarkets itself.

While another jam maker successfully achieved a 15%-25% boost on net sales within four weeks with major stores. This is by effectively controlling in-store resources and having well-informed and well-equipped account managers. By doing so, they were able to convince shop owners and achieve additional spaces for their products.

On the other hand, they knew that 89% of jam consumers already have their flavor in mind when they enter the store allowed the company to better organize the shelf. And because they understand the variety of uses consumers have for jam, it allowed them to identify and optimize the best hot zones for secondary placement. By placing its jam near other in-demand products, they had the advantage of reaching not only the percentage of shoppers who come into a store knowing they want jam, but also the others who don’t.

‘Sure and safe’ is sometimes better than the ‘Risky and Give-It-All’ mindset. Knowing your limitations (available store space, marketing capacity, etc.) can make you identify the best counter-measures that you that can lead to boosting your sales giving you a taste of sweet success.

Most companies know that there is a need to identify what are the best marketing strategies to boost sales before approving the launch of these new products. These includes systematic plans such as Product portfolio which considers available space, Merchandise depending on placement capabilities and Promotions which is set on top customer’s commercial list. This teaches a company to focus not just on their products but on what matters most on a particular store.

Finally, executing with consistency and efficiency is vital. Leading companies’ value the importance of providing a system that will assure that their product will continuously thrive and dominate the market, including a clear strategic plan for their team to execute and conducting proper monitoring of each sales agent’s competence which assures that maximum efforts are being done. Thinking ahead of other competitors will lead you to technological strategies that can increase your in-store effectiveness while being able to focus on other stores that are in need of concentration and troubleshoot. This will establish your strong grasp on being on the top of the market chain

This is impressively evident to a European food company which saw stores that had implemented a sales excellence program achieve 70% more volume uplift than non-program stores. Another company saw a similar effort deliver an uplift of more than 15%.

Much evidence can prove that companies that constantly sought and responded to the potential inside each store can expect and witness sales growth by an additional 5% to 15% each year.

However, there is no time to relax.

Given that the competition for the top spot is a constant and tough battle, consumer behavior and the retail environment will continuously change. So, even the best strategic plan needs to be updated. Because we’re in a time of super-fast shopper decisions and dwindling shelf space, the store is becoming a battle arena where the main rule is: ‘survival-of-the-greatest.’

No company can afford to wait and be still. The war is on-going.

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Five Tips to Persuade Retail Buyers to Get you in Just a Single Meeting

One of the dilemmas of most of the retailers is on how to actually persuade a retail buyer in a meeting. Perhaps, you yourself are having experiments on how to get a big “YES” whenever you are presenting in a meeting/pitching.

Trusting yourself is a good scheme, but of course, you have to be backed-up by reminders on how to encourage your buyers to get you in a meeting. Thus, we have filed up some tips on how to persuade retail buyers to get you in just a single meeting

1. Develop a strong retail pitch presentation with a strong message

Of course, persuading is a matter of presentation and messaging. Make sure that your pitching presentation would be aligned with your product and with their current merchandising plans. Then from there, you might want to get in touch with buyers and distributors and deliver to them a pitch package that may include a cover letter, press kit, and product samples. Or perhaps, you might want to simply go to their store and personally present your pitch presentation.

2. Get straight to the point

Business people are busy people. They won’t allow a lot of time for you to present your pitching. So, it is advisable for you to actually be well prepared with a concise presentation. Just remember the acronym for “KISS”:

• Keep
• It
• Short and
• Simple

Also, in presenting, don’t tell long stories. Better to provide them with critical data on your products—price points, product warranties, manufacturing capabilities, and data on consumer needs.

3. Brand yourself well

It would be better for you to get into being noticed if you will brand yourself well. Before you go in for your first meeting, perhaps, one of the best things to do is to build a good, solid following via various social media sites. Make a name first and make yourself known. After that, everything would follow.

4. Prove yourself

This is one of the struggles that most of the retailers have to go through—specially when your products are in its introductory stage. Of course, trust is a basic business issue. Retails chains are having issues whether the supplier is going to be able to keep up.

Well, it’s a hard thing to skip that portion—but it’s not impossible. Just show them that you’ll be able to keep up with demand and work with perseverance with a big chain.

5. Try, and try, and try, and try again

One industry is different from another industry. One person is different from another person. If you have got approval from one, there is no assurance that you’d also get approval from another.

There are lots of changes that are currently happening in the business industry. But, there is one thing that remains: rejection. Well, how you would handle it is a matter of choice. But, of course, it would be best if you’d do it in a positive way.

When it comes to handling rejections, here are some tips to actually be more perseverant amid the pain caused by such:

• Don’t take it personally
• Expect rejection
• Maintain your focus of control
• Learn from the rejection
• Realize rejection is progression, not regression

In doing it, try every angle, meet more people who can lend you a hand to achieve your goals and build a good relationship with them. From there, definitely, your efforts will be crowned with success.

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Grocery Store Layouts: How it influences Shopping Behavior?

Walking into any grocery you’d care to name is a familiar experience.  It’s not just because grocery shopping is a regular activity.  It’s because they’re all laid out in the same way.

No matter where you go, grocery stores follow a formula.

Psychological triggers.

There is no psychological trigger more potent than that of scent.  A scent can trigger memories of people, places and events in our lives.  That’s especially true of the scent of flowers and bread.

And where do we find the flowers and bread in a grocery store?  Right by the front entrance.  As soon as you’re through the door, your sense of smell is assailed by these comforting scents, putting you in a pleasant mood (even if only momentarily).

Right in the decompression zone (the open area just inside the front door), shoppers are prepared to buy with sensory triggers.  It’s not just the scents that get you.  It’s the colorful bunches of flowers, so evocative of celebration and the warmer days of the year.

But the message those flowers are sending are of “freshness”, indicating that your grocery store is a source of health and nutrition.  That message creates a mood.

Produce.

The theme of freshness is most prevalent in the produce department.  In the grocery store layout, this is placed to the right of the entrance, or directly in front of it, ensuring it’s the first thing you see.

There, the fresh fruit and vegetables lay in attractive piles, waiting to be purchased.  Even though the grocery store is full of frozen and prepared foods in other departments, the immediate sight of the produce department casts the establishment as one which cares about your health, as it offers the bounty of the earth, the moment you walk in.

Again, this creates a certain ambience – one of nutritional legitimacy.

Staples.

Staples like eggs and milk are always found in the furthest reaches of the store.  That’s because you need to walk past all the other products on hand (especially featured and demonstration items), on your way back there.  It’s only the most marketing-impervious shopper who will make this journey untouched by the appeals encountered on the way to the back of the store for what they came in for.

And remember, on the way to the check out, shoppers must pass by all the products they’d already passed on their trek to the staples section.

Grocery layouts all follow a strategic pattern, designed to trigger and nurture the consumer buying impulse.

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Top Suggestive Selling Techniques that would Help You Increase your Retail Sales

Basically, suggestive selling is referred to as techniques that are being used in sales to persuade customers to add extra items to their purchase. This is also a very powerful way to give the clients the chance to consider and walk around more over the shop to further find out if there are more things they can buy that’s beneficial for them. Thus, simply, suggestive selling can influence customers to complete a purchase of items that did not think about buying the time they walked in your store.

In line with that, always know that there’s always a thin line between suggestive selling and irritating your customers. We all know that when a customer feel like your staff is pressuring him, there would be a big probability that they would just walk out your store, avoid himself from coming back, or perhaps, he would come less frequently. As a general rule, you always have to ensure that all your customers would leave your store with a smile on their faces and are feeling excited to actually come back to your store. Therefore, training your support staff on proper suggestive selling techniques is a BIG must.

Hence, here are some suggestive selling schemes to keep in mind:

1. Welcome your customers differently. 

A research says that a simple act of saying, “Hello, ma’am/sir! Have you been here before?” can actually escalate your sales by 16%. Therefore, if a close-ended question can help you increase your sales by 16%, what more if you’d ask the right kind of questions that’s more proper, engaging, and appealing to your customers? Considering that some of your customers don’t have any idea of what to purchase when entering your store, you might want to try opening up with statements or questions that would simply encourage them to follow you or lend you more time with a good response. Take, for example, in a restaurant, you can start with “Hi, ma’am! We’re currently having a promotion on our new delicacies. Perhaps, you might want to try it. I would be more than glad to assist you.”

2. Utilize personalized avowals and inquiries. 

On this portion, we advise you to utilize complementary questions and statements that would merely encourage your shoppers to discover more about an item in your store. For example, a shopper is fitting a shoe in your store. In this situation, you might want to consider asking the following questions:

• On what occasion are you planning to use that shoe?
• How do you typically care for your shoes?
• How much are you willing to spend?

These kinds of questions would let your customers know that you care about their needs. It would also build trust which usually leads to up-selling chances.

3. Recommend other items that compliment. 

As an aggressive retailer, you should always look for opportunities to endorse other products that they would also need upon purchasing the product they have already chosen. On this matter, your customer would not just appreciate the way you consider them as special, but would also probably consider one of the items you are suggesting.

Take, for example, a customer walked in your women’s clothing boutique and is trying on a necklace, you might want to render some words of affirmations and then eventually recommend a pair of earrings that would match the necklace she’s currently trying.

However, there’s a challenge to not be too pushy. It has to be seeming like they are the ones who had the idea. When it came to the point that your customer would already pay for the products, let your cashier thank them and invite them to come back again. Also, if you have any upcoming events or planned promotions, take the opportunity to let them know.

 

 

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Chatbots and Retail: How are they Relevant to Each Other?

With the fast-paced evolution of technology, businesses are having struggles remaining on top of it to strengthen up their bottom line. And because there seems to be new technology being established each day, it can be a hard stuff to choose what your retail business should hold or not.

Executing new tech also necessitates money and resources. Thus, you have to be certain that what you would do is worth the investment: this is the position retailers may discovery themselves in when having thoughts about chatbots. Considering all the chatter in the industry with regards to conversational commerce, some retailers are also wondering if they must invest on these automated bots that would automatically take customer queries, give customer service, and potentially upsell to shoppers.

Of course, there are lots of conversations in the past about chatbots. But let us just dig deeper into what really chatbots are, how they work, and if they are perfect for your business.

Chatbots? What are they?

Chatbots are specially programmed robots that interact with customers and simulate human conversation through artificial intelligence (AI). Chatbots Magazine describes them as: “A chance to get in contact with your clients is a significant way for your business to grow. Chatbots help to handle interactions with customers for e-commerce companies and simulate the shopping that buyers get in a retail store.”

As an alternative of having your customers answer forms to get assistance, or choose from a pull-down menu when selecting products, chatbots can support customers and provide them the sense that they’ are actually working together with a helpful retail associate.

As of now, there are lots of messaging bots can by now be experienced in proprietary retail apps—such as Subway or FreshDirect—and even when you send a message to a branded Facebook Business Pages. Not to mention, Facebook later confirmed that customers have already created 33,000 chatbots for its Messenger app to date.

Chatbots? What are its benefits?

Consistent Customer Service

Chatbots provides retailers a great way to actually strengthen their brand when they’re personalized to give the same kind of customer service that shoppers are expecting from their brand—be it in-store or online. Also, bots allow brands to give cohesive and consistent customer service since the chatbot replies are well-ordered.

Lower Costs

On top of acting as functioning as an irreplaceable marketing strategy, Chatbot Magazine states that: “People prefer to receive information about the brands while they’re shopping, and chatbot seems as product or service description and FAQ. A chatbot is an interactive and engaging way to cut down the shopping time and a possibility to free up you from searching customer support manager. It allows you to enhance your ROI, keeping your costs low.”

Rapid Responses

Holding up your customers by your site by means of replying immediately to their questions pull down the probability that those users will exit from your site to see a competitor and try to find out an answer to their inquiry—thus growing the generation and amount of sales on-site.

 

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Five Big Data Tools To Fit Into Your Store

There’s a growing quantity of statistics accessible with regard to shoppers and their buying behaviors. Starting with product research, to purchases, then to pick up, shoppers are working together with your products online—and even in your store—while utilizing technology to make more well-versed choices.

And as retail rivalries continually arise, innovative retailers are searching for various schemes to hit into big data and analytics in order to connect with their shoppers in good ways they never had before. Not to mention, 62% percent of retailers report that the usage of data and analytics give their businesses a competitive advantage.

Well, it might be, at first look, a vast task, but worry no more! Perhaps, if you’re wondering if there are tools you can actually use to help you gather, analyze, and understand how to apply big data to lend a hand for your business to grow, you are reading the right article.

Thus, to give you some, here is a list of 5 of our more recommended tools to help you maximize big data to empower your customers and ultimately boost your business.

Datapine

As per their website, they’ve got an outstanding team of data scientists, developers, technological leaders and academics who all work for the same goal: to help people learn from their data. They empower businesses of all sizes, technical and non-technical users alike, to explore, visualize and communicate their information.

There, you can simply build your own dashboard through the use of their retail template and dig deep into customer patterns. The platform also gives ease for users to actually share their dashboard and reports.

Google Analytics Solutions

Google has a whole family of products that can assist you to have a better comprehension of your customer insights—and how to apply it. Implement market research with Surveys 360, collect website and app metrics with Google Analytics, and utilize them to produce modified proficiencies for your market with Google Optimize.

Canopy Labs

Canopy Labs is a software that helps businesses track, optimize, and personalize their customer journeys. They’re a predictive analytics software company bent on revolutionizing customer experiences.

They generate information that would communicate to you what your customers did, and what they might be doing in the future. Here, you may get handle better your customers’ journey, create considerate product endorsements, practice analytical technology to prompt email marketing campaigns, and spontaneously segment customers and spot potential churn risks.

Tranzlogic

Tranzlogic is a good tool to “level the playing field” for every business by providing the customer insights, solutions and tools that are needed to make highly effective, data-driven decisions.  It is also a turnkey program that has affiliated with retailers and payment systems to offer you with information such as the age, location, income, preferences, and hobbies of your market. Also, one of the good things here is that getting into the data necessitates no installation or authorization from your customers.

Beaconstac

Beaconstac’s goal is to connect the digital and physical worlds through the use of innovative technology.

If you want to increase your visibility into shopper behavior like regular visit period and engagement level and measure the success of proximity marketing campaigns with ideal technology. It also makes it easy to kick off by merely selecting a kit extending from three to nine beacons and then picking a plan that suits your needs.

 

 

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Ways How Retailers can Take Advantage of the Summer Season

The summer travel season is undoubtedly on the rise! While there are advantages and disadvantages that this season brings to various industries, perhaps, you are curious about what would it bring to the retail industry.

Thus, here are some of the ways we can give you on how you can actually maximize this seasonal spending and some examples of retailers who are already giving a shot on it.

Understand your Audience

Knowing the ways and creating strategies on how you can leverage the summer travel season can be a good scheme to better serve your existing customer base—which perhaps, can also attract new customers.

The first thing to do is to know your market’s behavior. You have to understand and be of knowledge regarding your customers’ preferences, what your customers are looking for, what they love about your products and services, and on what way would they want to complete a purchase in from your store.

Create a Summer-feeling through Summer Shelves

On this matter, you could also create seasonal and/or limited edition products that would best fit for the summer travelers and tourists. In accordance to the article entitled, “13 Summer Retail Marketing Tips To Heat Up Sales,” Forbes says: “Take Starbucks’ Lilly Pulitzer water bottles as an example. The bottles flew off the shelves as soon as they were available this past spring.”

If ever you can’t actually grab a partnership with a major brand like Lilly Pulitzer for your own special product, you can create a design of various seasonal products—such as mugs, stationery, or whatever makes sense for your brand—through CafePress, Vistaprint, or Printful. Make sure that these things would appeal to your shoppers.

To create noise about your seasonal products, perhaps, you might want to consider hosting a contest or giveaway and create a mechanic wherein your customers shall submit designs that would be featured on your limited edition merchandise.

Unique Experience is a good scheme

Aside from giving out unique products to gather more new customers during the summer months, perhaps, you should think about offering unique experiences and ways on how they would experience and interact with your brand on the time they’re in your store. Based on the article entitled, “Travel Trends Could Bring Shoppers Back to Brick and Mortar, Nicole Reyhle of Retail Minded states: “Whether that is an in-store demo/class, a take-home trial, an on-site expert or something completely your own, know that consumers will travel for experience, not for product.”

On this matter, you might want to consider hosting events with food and/or prizes wherein your attendees would have the opportunity to check out your merchandise. Also, may create custom displays so your possible market can have a first-hand experience of your products.

Give your Customers reasons to Stay in Your Store

Nicole of Retail Minded also says: “From the music playing in your shop to the seating areas you choose to offer, understand that comfort and aesthetics are key to keeping customers in store once they arrive.”

Here, you can various tactics to actually get your customers to be in-store for a longer span of a moment. You can use the following strategies:

• Offer a free Wifi
• Place a juice bar/bottled water “pop-in” around the store to provide refreshments to your customers
• Enhance the layout of your store to make your merchandise be easily discoverable
• Set up a clearance section at the back of your store
• Set up product demonstrations inside your store

 

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Three Tried-and-tested Email Ideas to Increase Foot Traffic in your Store

For many industries, although most of them can’t still notice it, email marketing is the key to achieve their goals. Not to mention, there are more than 205 billion emails that are being sent and received each day making it one of the effective ways for retailers to actually reach their customers out and motivate them.

Well, if you’re going to compare email marketing to social media, paid ads, and other tactics, it is more of a personal approach. Here, you are touching your audience’s inbox directly. Thus, utilizing email marketing gives you the opportunity to reach a qualified audience on an intimate level to the point that you could easily encourage them to take action.

In this light, here are some email ideas you might want to adapt to actually attract more foot traffic in your store:

1. In-Store Events and Announcements

One of the most recommended ways for every retailer to increase foot traffic in their store is through hosting an in-store event. Of course, you don’t want your event to be in vain—that little to no market would come to indulge in your event. Utilizing email marketing would help you a lot on this matter.

To do this, may have to send more than just send a single email per address regarding it. Instead, it would be a good scheme if you would have an email series that would be sent to your leads weeks prior to the event. This would help you create a buzz and would more likely raise awareness of your your event in your market.

Also, we all know that not all emails are being opened. Thus, if you would send five emails instead of one, you’ll get a greater probability that your customers would see it.

2. Coupons

No customer would say “no” to a coupon. But if your goal is to increase foot traffic in your brick-and-mortar store, it is not a good idea that you would set coupon codes that can be redeemed online.

Perhaps, if you would want to offer coupons, make sure that these are redeemable in-store so your customers must redeem the discount in person—regardless if they want to order either online or not. Also, it would be a good idea if you would incorporate these coupons to certain events, such as holidays, birthdays, etc.

3. Receipts

Nowadays, sending email receipts are being one of the norms that mostly resonate among brick-and-mortar stores. However, there are still many retailers that miss out on this chance to create a good offer or promote extra connection with their customers. And if you’re one of those retailers that often overlook this strategy, perhaps, your competitors are already getting way far ahead from you.

In sending email receipts, you can actually include a discount or free gift that’s redeemable in their next in-store purchase. Also, this is applicable to e-commerce sales. There, if a customer orders from your website, you can actually urge them to come into your store with an assured freebie that they can only get if they show at your physical store.

 

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