Sales Front: Definitions and Challenges

The term storefront (front de vente) is used in various ways within both the marketing and retail sales worlds. The meaning can therefore vary depending on your company's culture and the configuration of its distribution network.

Sidely offers you an overview of the different uses: each paragraph will cover a definition 😉

Highlighted Points of Sale

An iconic store highlighted by a brand or banner is called a front of sale or flagship.

By extension, brands present in mass retail generally use the term front of sale to designate a set of particularly strategic stores, relative to their high foot traffic or sales volume.

The real challenge is then to determine a pool of stores on which marketing and sales efforts will be substantial, in order to maximize sales, or the number of products to be accepted by the buyer in their assortment.

• If you are looking to adapt your sales organization to your distribution network, you can also consult our article on point of sale segmentation;

• To determine your front of sale, you must master the concepts of numerical and value distribution.

Front of Sale, synonymous with frontal or facing

Retail marketing sometimes uses the phrase front of sale to refer to products that are highlighted at a point of sale, meaning those facing the customer. These are the ones at eye level, on the front line of a shelf. We also speak of projections on the shelf of a gondola or a linear display.

The shelves on which to position these strategic products can be found in the busy aisles of the store. However, some nuance: for many, the phrase front of sale refers more specifically to the checkout area, which is—most of the time—at the exit of the store.

Distribution Network and territorial coverage

Finally, other companies use the term front of sale to designate all the stores in which their products are marketed. Translate as: "all the places where customers find themselves in front of our products/services."

This usage might seem loose, but it is actually very useful in the context of sales prospecting. Indeed, while some brands focus their strategy on integrated points of sale and therefore work closely with central purchasing offices, others choose to target independent stores.

In this case, the term front of sale refers to the multitude of points of sale in the field, rather than buyers in central offices. The same goes for control visits (shelf inventory, merchandising, etc.) which must take place at each individual store, even if the frequency of visits varies according to the importance of the points of sale to the sales revenue.

The phrase front of sale makes it possible in this context to reflect the reality of the distribution's territorial coverage. In general, the complexity for brands lies in covering numerous points of sale, and more specifically in optimizing sales routes.