Commercial data to the rescue of field sales representatives

The more uncertain the environment, the more retail businesses need benchmarks to rely on. The solution: exploit and interpret data wisely to make the right decisions.

In this article, we will review the sales data that will be most useful to your area managers and the best practices for leveraging it effectively.

Sales Data Sources

As a national brand, you can leverage a large amount of sales data:

• Sales Data:

  • Sales by product: Analyze quantities sold, revenues generated per product, and product performance trends over time.

  • Sales by store or branch: Evaluate the performance of different retail outlets and identify high- and low-performing stores.

  • Sales seasonality: Observe sales trends according to seasons or during special periods such as holidays or promotions.

• Customer Demographics:

  • Age, gender, and geographical location: This essential information helps you segment your customers and personalize your offers.

  • Demographics by store or branch: Understand the profile of clients visiting each store to better adapt your inventory and local marketing campaigns.

• Behavioral Data:

  • Purchasing behavior: Track purchase frequency, purchased product categories, average basket value, and brand preferences.

  • Customer journey: Identify typical pathways in-store or on your website, as well as touchpoints influencing the purchase decision.

• Logistics Data:

  • Stock levels: Manage your inventory, identify out-of-stock items, and optimize the distribution of your products.

  • Delivery times: Measure the replenishment time of stores and the efficiency of your supply chain.

• Marketing and Promotional Data:

  • Responses to promotions: Evaluate the performance of different promotional offers and analyze the effectiveness of discounts, coupons, and other incentives.

  • Online engagement: Monitor interactions with your digital campaigns, click-through rates, and ad conversion rates.

This rich flow of data offers many opportunities, but it is essential not to spread yourself too thin. Focus on the data most relevant to your brand, which will enable you to make the best strategic decisions. We will focus here on four types of data frequently used by brands distributed in supermarkets (GMS).

E-commerce: leveraging online and offline data

The pandemic prompted consumers to turn to e-commerce, a trend that, while slightly declining in 2023, remains robust. In Europe, around 5% of consumers now shop online, while in France, this figure reaches 12%, representing a 7-percentage-point increase compared to 2023.

This represents a significant opportunity to collect valuable data.

If you have implemented an e-commerce site, you can also track trends relative to your products or the marketing strategies you have adopted. However, it is important to note that online sales volumes tend to be lower than those in large and medium-sized supermarkets (GMS). This information can reveal general trends, but you should not jump in without an in-depth analysis.

And for good reason: online and offline shopping often present significant differences. For example, supermarkets' online offerings are increasingly evolving into an independent and profitable format with a unique value proposition. According to McKinsey, grocery retail e-commerce sites are expected to grow faster than the overall grocery/supermarket market in the coming years, including online-only players (pure-players).

McKinsey also points out that consumers expect different value propositions depending on whether they shop online or offline, as these channels meet distinct shopping needs. For instance, 37% of UK consumers (a two-percentage-point increase compared to 2023) still choose different grocery stores for their online shopping versus their offline shopping, reflecting their channel-specific needs. In addition, UK consumers place greater importance on in-store promotions, whereas for online shopping, price trumps promotions.

Thus, relying solely on e-commerce data is not enough to accurately address and fully satisfy consumers' diverse expectations and, ultimately, increase your sales.

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Panel data

And more specifically, data from distributor panels. Panels are marketing research tools that systematically and continuously collect data from a representative sample of retail outlets. This data is then analyzed and shared with industrial players and brands operating in the mass retail sector, usually for a financial contribution.

Why is this data interesting for your brand?

This information offers a valuable window into sales, inventory, pricing, and other aspects related to product distribution in supermarket networks (GMS). Panel data will allow you to decipher the overall performance of products sold in supermarkets, track market and sales trends, and evaluate the effectiveness of marketing and sales strategies.

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Data collected by your sales representatives

Data collected by your sales representatives on the field is probably the most crucial source of information for several reasons:

• Personalization: This data is specific to your brand, answering your business needs and objectives. You can specifically target the data you want to collect on your products as well as your competitors', through price checks, merchandising checks, or competitive analysis.

• Exclusivity: This source of information is unique because it is inaccessible to other players, unlike data from panels, for example. However, remember that if you collect information on your competitors (like price or share of shelf), your competitors can do the same.

• Accuracy: Field data allows for a detailed analysis by outlet, product, or category, offering a level of granularity that other sources cannot provide.

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It is essential to properly structure the reporting of this information in your CRM. This data is generally collected by your area managers, and input errors or omissions can easily happen. To minimize these risks, it is crucial to equip your teams with an adapted CRM that functions on mobiles and tablets. Such a system should allow them to fill in shelf reports even without an internet connection, directly inside the store. This level of detail and accessibility optimizes the quality and usefulness of the collected information, thereby strengthening your retail and marketing strategies.

Data sharing

Last but not least: your sell-out data.‍

Sell-outs are the data that retail stores collect when consumers go through checkout. It is also referred to as data sharing, because this is data that distributors share with brands, usually for a financial consideration or at least prior negotiations.

We have written an article on how to obtain and analyze your sell-out data.

Data-sharing analysis helps determine which products sell well, when, and in which stores. This data, which serves as a transaction log of the stores, can be enriched by scanning loyalty cards, enabling purchases to be linked to specific clients.

Why is this data interesting for your brand?

Sell-outs represent the actual sales made in-store. This is the most reliable way to know the real value of your sales. But beyond that, data-sharing offers valuable insights into consumer purchasing behavior with a very high level of granularity. This data also helps support your area managers when they are stretched thin; having these automated reports allows them to keep track of sales without requiring systematic on-site store visits.

How to leverage your sales data effectively?

Not all sales data is created equal. We started looking at this earlier with ground data collected by area managers: how do you ensure the collected data is reliable? Rest assured, this is one of the major issues for digitally native vertical brands (DNVBs).

If you want to make your data reliable, it is important to simplify the work of your field sales force. Once collected, to exploit it properly, we advise you to follow a few key principles.

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Collaborative data with complete transparency

Beware of silo effects: every person at the same hierarchical level should have access to the same level of information. The more data is shared, the better the responsiveness of the organization.

If your area managers have easy access to helper sales data, they will use it in their sales pitches.

The Sidely solution: Share relevant information through reminders on their calendars and mobile/tablet applications. For example, if your area managers visit a store to pitch a temporary promotion, as soon as they open their app, the relevant information should be highlighted on the store profile—such as the objective of the visit, the product concerned, and the sales data from the last promotion for that same product or store.

Our CRM allows for the collaborative sharing of information (meetings, notes, progress on goals, contacts...), facilitating daily management and improving your team's performance.

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Data control

Data is by nature delicate for two main reasons:

• Risk of misuse: Data can be complex to interpret. If it is not understood, it will not be useful, let alone in a sales pitch context where clarity is paramount.

• Data confidentiality: It is not always appropriate to share all data. Too much information can overwhelm your area managers, leaving them lost in a flood of details. It is advisable to keep things concise and share only information that will truly be useful to them.‍

The Sidely solution: Use user rights and roles management within Sidely to determine who has access to which information. This allows for safer and more efficient data management.

Real-time data

For an area manager, access to real-time data is an undeniable asset. This immediacy of information enables reactivity on the ground. And for strategic decision-making, it is just as important for headquarters to have real-time field information.

It is truly a collaborative effort. For example, when an area manager detects an out-of-stock situation in a store, they can immediately transmit this information to the logistics team. An order can then be executed without delay, and delivery is quickly set up. Responsiveness is key to good customer service.

The Sidely solution: The ability for field sales reps to use Sidely on mobile, even offline. Our CRM syncs automatically, conveying information from mobile to web and from the field to headquarters in real-time.

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Data traceability

Data is multiplying and is sometimes difficult to interpret. To address this problem, data traceability is essential. Where does the data originate? How has it evolved over its lifecycle? The answers to these questions are difficult to get through manual processing alone. Once again, the power of software toolsets is often the solution to these issues.

The Sidely solution: Sales tracking supports field operations from planning their store visits to managing customer relationships.

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The power of a single tool

When it comes to data, you must avoid getting scattered! For this reason, having a single tool is an extremely advantageous solution. Consolidating and securing data in a single source offers several advantages. Indeed, integrating and inputting data from numerous retail outlets daily will directly facilitate sales decision-making. The competitive advantage is therefore significant, especially when the data is easily actionable by all stakeholders.‍

Trusting the data, sharing it simply with all contributors to daily retail success... That is the key to success, especially when uncertainty prevails! Crises are often opportunities to correct what is not working to start fresh... What if Sidely helped you do just that?

How can sales data help your field sales representatives?

As you have gathered, data is indispensable... provided you know how to use it!

How to use data to negotiate better: a practical example

You are a brand selling fruit-based desserts.

For this store, your area manager has a dual goal:

• Run replenishment picking on fruity yogurts. They need to secure 2 SKU listings.

• Set up POS marketing materials to display maximum visibility and thereby increase sales.

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Having access to panel data along with your own sales and shelf metrics will enable them to negotiate more effectively. Your area manager will negotiate with the department head to target the 2 missing SKU listings, emphasizing:

• Loss of opportunity: If the ideal market share is not respected, in terms of product volume or category range, the store risks selling less. Your area managers can advice the department head;

• Greater benefits: Your area manager can leverage data from peer stores where your fruity yogurts perform very well. To do this, several metrics can be shared: checkout data from other stores, sales volume growth, shelf positioning analysis...

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Your data will also help you optimize your product assortments in supermarkets or better sell your promotions.