Companies implement
merchandising strategies to successfully market their products to retail
shoppers. In order for a company to maximize retail success, it’s important to
ensure that it’s merchandising strategy is followed by retailers. For this purpose retail merchandising audits are conducted.
Effective merchandising
means having the right product, in the right place, at the right time, in the
right amount, at the right price, always. Implementation of this goal involves
conducing three main types of merchandising audits:
- Regular shelf checks
- Seasonal/promotional merchandising inspections
- Competitor analysis.
Once you start
merchandising audits performance, keep in mind three things that are critically
important for maximizing the benefits of retail inspections:
- Permanency – merchandising audits should be conducted on regular basis, rather than on occasion. Regular merchandising audits ensure consistently high level of customer service and give companies opportunity to identify and track retail trends.
- Broad coverage – Ideally every retail location, to which your company supplies goods or products, should be audited on regular basis. Broad coverage of retail locations during merchandising audits provides holistic and balanced picture of retail conditions. Conducting regular merchandising audits in as many retail locations as you can afford, you provide opportunities to reveal top-performing stores and identify places where things are not going too well. This data is vital for developing and adjustment of marketing strategies.
- Relevance – To maximize the value of merchandising audits a company should organize auditing activities in a way that minimizes the time from data acquisition to taking appropriate actions. Big time gaps between a merchandising audit performed and decision made reduce the effectiveness of the effort.
It may seem that the
implementation of all the points, mentioned above, requires too much money and
resources to start, but it’s not quite so. Due to the up-to-date mobile merchandising software solutions every
company can afford conducting regular in-house audits in multiple locations and
getting real-time information from points of sale. Let’s consider in what ways
merchandising software can maximize the benefits of your merchandising audits.
If you opt for a
comprehensive software solution for merchandising
and field sales, you can easily combine regular store visits of sales
representatives to merchandising activities. Retail execution software for
tablets and smartphones allows your field reps to conduct all kinds of
activities at points of sale, including taking product orders, performing
merchandising audits, collecting various store data, interviewing customers,
analyzing competitors and much more.
When you get an
all-in-one retail execution solution, you can easily provide full coverage of
retail locations by merchandising audits, almost at no additional cost. Mobile
forms and automated data entry allow collecting various types of data (text,
numbers, photos, signatures) very quickly, so a sales rep can easily perform a
merchandising audit when he visits a store to take an order.
Merchandising software provides automatic
synchronization of all the data between the office and the field. This means
not only your sales reps or merchandisers don’t have to visit the office to get
the schedule of visits or to report back, but also delivers real-time data
workflow to maximize the value of merchandising audits. All the data, collected
in the field, is instantly transferred to the corporate database and is
available for analysis. Moreover, if a merchandiser during an audit notices
out-of-stocks, to correct the situation, he can quickly make an order by
himself, using the same mobile application as he uses to perform the audit.
Live data aggregation and mobile access to necessary information from anywhere
both for office managers and field reps accelerate decision-making and improves
company’s bottom line.
Don’t hesitate to move
your merchandising execution to the next level. VisitBasis offers companies to
start automating their merchandising activities completely free of charge.
VisitBasis merchandising software is extremely easy to deploy and use. No
installation needed. Register at www.visibasis.com and you’ll be able to
set up your first automated audit in 15-20 minutes. Call us today +1 (800) 497-6293 (tall free),
or schedule a demo, to see how
merchandising software works.
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