RETAIL SALES

WOne of the many tools found within a category management solution that can help you to improve your business is the planogram. You can read more about them here. Suffice to say, the end goal is to increase both your sales and profitability.

Here’s how:

Planograms allow you to place your products in the correct position on your shelf. By flushing data into your planograms, you can also give them the space they deserve. For example, if a product sells consistently over a period, you’d allocate more space on the shelf. Likewise, if a product sells poorly, you can reduce its space.

Besides increasing the opportunity for more sales, you can face fewer out of stock scenarios and prevent unnecessary overstocking.

On top of that, they ensure that your products are merchandising correctly. And that’s not just for one store. After creating a planogram at your Head Office, you can send it to all of your stores to ensure that they all merchandise the product category consistently.

While planograms allow you to present your products to your customers, you first need to choose the right items to stock. That’s where assortment planning comes in; it allows you to provide a consistent product offering.

The result of offering the right mix of products is an increase in your sales and profitability. But there is more to it. Alongside more sales, you’re again able to create a shopping environment that customers will want to return to, thereby improving customer loyalty.

You can also look to range the top performing lines in the market. Just keep your target market in mind when doing this. What sells well in a competitor’s store might not sell well in yours, and the last thing you want to do is range a product that ends up sitting on the shelf.

When considering which products to stock, you should always range according to your space constraints. That ensures that you provide your top-performing lines sufficient space to grow and give you a good return on your investment.

Loyalty card programmes are the perfect opportunity for you to show your appreciation for any shopper who purchases products in your stores. Loyalty points redeemed as cash can quite easily result in customers returning to spend more.

You could even team up with other non-retail companies. For example, a loyal customer could present their loyalty card at a petrol station when filling up, at the gym or elsewhere for bonus points. All of this creates a feeling of goodwill and motivates shoppers to apply for a card and use it.

The bonus is the data that you can accumulate. With this data, you can improve your product assortment to meet the needs of your customers.

As much as a loyalty card programme is worth introducing, you can’t leave it at that. You must introduce return and guarantee policies that are shopper-friendly.

But what would that look like? And how would it lead to more sales for your store? Simple: if a customer feels that their interests are protected, they are more likely to return to your store and buy more. There is also the point that impulse buying happens when customers feel at ease.

For example, you could include a Double Your Money Back guarantee for house brands, extend repairs warranties and propose a cheapest price guarantee to match or beat the price of your competitors.

You could also include a guarantee policy around scanned products on the shelf which states that if the price on the shelf edge label doesn’t match the price when scanned, the first item is either free or at a reduced cost.

While controversial, you need to view this and other policies as opportunities to create repeat customers. Sometimes that includes accepting a loss now and then.

Besides return or guarantee policies, there are many store policies or procedures that you can implement. And all will have a direct impact on your sales. As a side note, these store procedures should complement the above policies rather than stand-alone.

A few such policies include:

• Placing a staff member at your store entrance to greet customers (and direct if necessary);
• Having proper security in-store;
• Ensuring your store is clean and ordered neatly at all times;
• Leaving a space when a product is out of stock and include a sign apologising to customers;
• Allowing your customers to opt for ‘rain cheque’ if a promotional product is out of stock;
• Pricing all of your products correctly on the shelf;
• Training your staff to be able to answer customer questions; and
• Ensuring there are never more than three customers in a queue before opening another till point.

There are many different ways that you can use your shelving to increase your sales.

For one, you can use them to refresh the look of your store. You can also use them to call attention to specific merchandise as well as take your shoppers on a journey by creating a path through your store.

Besides that, you must ensure your shelves are clean and neat and designed so it’s easy for shoppers to shop them.

Shelf edge labels should be on every product while your shelving needs to match the product. For example, use premium shelving for your luxury products. Also, if you only sell premium products, you shouldn’t use dump bins since it’ll give off the wrong image.

Above all, don’t make these shelving mistakes.

If a retailer forms part of a chain, one store cannot differ from another. While this is specific to your shelving and retail fixtures, it should also extend to your decor.

Your stores should maintain the same atmosphere for long enough to become familiar, but not too long that it becomes stale. That means they should also use the same lighting. You should also align your decor with your strategies.

Other ways to ensure consistency around your in-store decor is to employ the same architectural firm to provide a CAD drawing of every store and use the same shopfitters where possible.

Meanwhile, buy tiles and other floor decors in bulk to ensure consistent colouring. It’s here where attention to detail counts.

Similar to getting involved with category management, you should get involved with the retailer’s advertising programmes around your category. That could include funding part of any advertising that they’re undertaking.

Besides that, you should have a separate strategy to grow your brands. Since you specialise in your products and understand your customers deeply, you could quite easily personalise your marketing to fit with a person’s interests.

By sharing any insights that you might have with a retailer, you’re creating higher levels of loyalty and can become more engaged with their customer’s lives.

You can also advertise your products as innovative, which would motivate retailers to stock your product. If they’ve never seen your product on the market before, neither have their customers, which puts you at a distinct advantage.

As a supplier looking to get involved with the digital marketing efforts of a retailer, it’s all about creating value for their customers.

One way of doing that is through content marketing. Here, you could offer a retailer additional product content that is relevant to their customers. That would take the form of various blog posts on topics, ebooks, videos, webinars and infographics where applicable.

For example, you could create an online video in which you demonstrate the correct way to use your product, which could first influence the retailer to stock your product and then result in a customer buying it in-store.

You could supplement that in-store by installing a digital stand nearby the product aisle with the video playing on loop. Customers are more likely to buy a product when they are familiar with it and understand how to use it.

Keep in mind that when designing any content, always consider how it solves a problem that the consumer faces. As the buying process consists of three main stages - awareness, consideration and decision - you’d also need to create content for each step. By doing so, you’re giving a customer extra motivation to purchase your product over another.