Closing the Gap: Using Store Insights to Improve Category Negotiations
Executing a retail strategy for your product is complex. Many factors are essential in merchandising, and shelf position is one of them. Effective use of space is the basis for the success of any store; the correct placement of products in space greatly influences purchasing decisions and customer experience.
That said, negotiation is critical to achieving the most effective shelf placement to get the best out of your planogram, thus boosting sales. Here is how to negotiate a better location.
Getting your product into the store is only the first part of the struggle. That alone does not guarantee that consumers will profitably buy your product. Ensuring your product gets the visibility it deserves by negotiating shelf placement is critical.
An effective shelf placement can mean the difference between a successful product launch and a flop. By negotiating a better placement at the outset, you can create a win-win arrangement with retailers.
However, how exactly do you negotiate a better placement and optimize planograms? One key element is using shelf and sales data.
Most companies that install their products in many stores across a territory need more visibility into the state of the stores and shelves. Hiring people to audit stores, going product by product and shelf by shelf, is costly, slow, ineffective, and, most of the time, inaccurate.
Bringing Category Analysis into the Negotiation
To compromise with the retailer to benefit both parties, you need strong arguments backed up by data. But not any specific data that allows brands to have unprecedented visibility. This is in the form of Category Analysis.
Category market analysis refers to gathering in-depth knowledge and crucial insights into the demand and supply market for a particular category, enabling effective data-driven strategies to market. Thus, a category analysis not only shows how your product category is performing but can also be used to negotiate better shelf space for your brand, producing the highest return and boosting sales.
Category intelligence enables you, as a supplier, to offer retailers expertise regarding a category; the best way is by providing accurate data. More specifically, data comes from a category analysis.
With this tool, you can get historical trends of every product in your category across multiple channels throughout Australia, analyzing every detail and the big picture. That means it's not just a general overview of the category; you get to analyze brand performance and compare sales against units… basically, everything about a product(s) category can be analyzed.
That way, the data will back you up when negotiating with retailers to get better shelf space by arguing how great your product is. You can tell how a category performs over time by comparing sales by days, weeks, months, and even years.
With data, you are prepared and in a position of strength to argue about possible changes with the retailer. It is all about communicating how these changes will improve the overall performance of their categories.
Let's go back to basics: using data from a category analysis, you can filter at any level you want to see, whether by state, chain, or individual store. At all these levels, you can analyze the share of the shelf, the share of assortment, the position of your products, new products in the category, shelf photos, and so much more.
This tool allows you to differentiate yourself from competitors, as you can present shelf data in a way that lets you argue how to boost sales and reduce risk with better product positioning.
Category Intelligence's data enables your company to lead data-driven negotiations, making faster decisions and allowing the best possible outcome for your products.
Get it done with crowdsourcing!
As mentioned, hiring employees to gather all the data is not cost-effective. To ensure consistent and accurate information, a database is needed to compile all the information, and an even larger base of people throughout the territory is required to conduct store audits and ensure planogram compliance. From a time and coverage standpoint, an in-house team cannot achieve this work alone.
Lucky for you, SmartSpotter counts on an unmatched network of field reporters and merchandisers who provide insights and actions to capture shelf data at scale, allowing you to keep your retail execution perfect.
The process ensures you quality, accurate, real-time data to effectively negotiate your products' shelf placement.
If you are ready to win at the shelf, contact us!