3 Ways in Which a Mobile Merchandising App Can Boost CPG Sales

Mobile merchandising apps have been the go-to tool for CPG category and marketing managers over the past couple of years for good reason: They greatly simplify the merchandising audit process, as well as reporting on it. With a mobile merchandising app, long gone are the days when reps had to manually fill in questionnaires and the data transcription work that could take days.

But mobile apps do more than streamlining the merchandising audit process. Mobile merchandising apps can be instrumental in boosting CPG sales as it provides a robust platform for implementing in-store initiatives, allowing the following to happen:

• Increased brand consistency
  Shoppers love consistency and well-displayed items. A mobile merchandising app provides more than just digital form-filling. Reps can also take in-store pictures and make notes on them, allowing for greater scrutiny from brand and category managers.
• Reduced out-of-stocks
  No stock means no sales. Without having to worry about data transcription, management can schedule more recurring in-store merchandising audits, what leads to better stock forecasting and less out-of-stocks.
• Easier market tests
  Testing a product and/or a market strategy before it is deployed is still the best way to predict future success. However, market tests are expensive, in part because of the increased scrutiny that needs to happen in target stores. A mobile merchandising app allows not only for the data flow needed to support that increased scrutiny, but also makes it easy to apply many more customer surveys – without the roadblock of data transcription.

VisitBasis is a complete mobile merchandising app solution that allows you to quickly and easily implement a cost-efficient in-store data collection system with no need for technical knowledge.

You can schedule a VisitBasis mobile merchandising app demo by clicking here.

How to Speed up Store Audit Checklist Reports

Store audits are a must-have in any retail business. Many aspects of the store might have to be checked on a regular basis, from merchandising to adherence to corporate standards and safety, so it is mandatory for management to have an efficient auditing system in place.

However, the old pen-and-paper store audit checklist way of performing inspections has many shortfalls. First, it generates a huge amount of paperwork that has then to be transcribed so the data can be properly analyzed. Also, the transcription process itself is normally far from smooth, being extremely time-demanding and error-prone – especially when we consider any hand-written notes. Finally, access to historical data can be challenging.

While the inefficiency of traditional store audit checklists is the main reason for the success of retail audit software packages, their reporting capabilities are why their use have become so quickly widespread.

Why? Because retail audit software allows for real-time audit reporting: as soon as an audit is complete in the auditors mobile device, the captured data will be available for reporting and analyzing. Moreover, store audit checklists can be customized to fit the individual business needs, and can be as short or as extensive as needed, without the size constraints imposed by paper and by data transcription.

VisitBasis retail audit software provides more than streamlined reporting. It is a complete system for creating custom store audit checklists with various multiple data formats, from free text to single/multiple choice, photos and even signatures. VisitBasis also allows managers to GPS verify the locations where the audits were performed, as well as setup follow-up audits directly from photo reports.

Interested in learning more? Schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial!