In supermarkets, consumers' buying decisions are influenced from the moment they enter the outlet.
For a brand to make its mark, it's crucial that its products are not only present on the shelf, but also strategically promoted.
That's why it needs to work closely with retailers to guarantee not only shelf presence, but also preferential positioning. It's this prime position that will capture customers' attention and ensure thatthey are selected first.
The aim is twofold: to increase product visibility and stimulate sales, by creating an attractive sales environment and optimizing product layout to encourage impulse buying.
In this article, we'll take a look at why it's important to work on your in-store presence, what strategies you need to put in place to achieve it, and the kpis you need to follow to optimize it.
In-store presence is an essential lever for the commercial success of brands. However, neglecting this aspect can lead to a cascade of negative consequences, both economically and organizationally. Let's take a look at the risks of insufficient visibility and presence in supermarkets, and the critical questions to ask when assessing your current situation.
It's vital to measure the impact of a neglected in-store presence, as this can lead to a significant drop in your results. Here are the key points to consider:
In-store presence is one of the challenges most faced by brands: how can you maximize sales at your points of sale by ensuring optimum presence and representation of your products?
One of the solutions is to adopt technologies that respond to the challenges we all face every day:
Can you relate to these issues? There are many things you can do! The first is to equip yourself with the CRM that meets your needs.
To identify the CRM best suited to your presence needs, let's take a look at your business timeline.
You may be struggling to ensure data reliability, data collection, or toeffectively support your sales people in the field to make relevant decisions. You may even be facing all three challenges simultaneously. So the first essential need is a tool that enables your sales reps to find information quickly and easily.
However, information alone is not enough. The aim is to make it actionable. To do this, you need to equip yourself with a solution that facilitates your analyses.
Data analysis is fundamental, but requires effective data collection. To do this, check that your CRM meets certain criteria. Please select :
These solutions will help you transform data collection and analysis into a smooth, efficient process, boosting the presence and visibility of your products in-store.
The art of positioning your products to maximize sales.
The position of your products in the store is a decisive factor for their visibility and, consequently, for their sale. Understanding your share of shelf space and the different strategic locations is essential for negotiating the best positions.
Consider the following aspects for effective implementation:
To ensure the optimum presence of your products, negotiating strategic locations is essential. Work closely with department managers to obtain preferred positions, such as shelves at eye level, near checkouts, or next to complementary products. These locations increase visibility and the likelihood of being chosen by customers.
Creating a stimulating sales environment
Merchandising goes far beyond simple product placement. It's a strategic approach to reshaping the in-store customer experience. Effective merchandising ensures that products are not only visible, but also presented in a way that stimulates interest and encourages purchase, especially impulse buying.
When you apply visual merchandising techniques and organize your products in a logical and attractive way, you create a sales environment that appeals to customers and positively influences their purchasing decisions. Here are a few keys to successful merchandising:
Effective merchandising will turn your product presentation into a sales opportunity by actively encouraging purchasing decisions.
Increase visibility and stimulate impulse sales
Promotions are essential levers for boosting product visibility and stimulating purchases. In addition to drawing attention to your products, implementing attractive promotions helps create a sense of urgency and exclusivity, factors that can significantly boost sales.
Before launching a promotion, you need to clearly define your objectives. Are you looking to increase sales in the medium term, or to improve the in-store visibility of your products and brand?
Then select the type of promotion best suited to your sales objectives. There are several approaches to promoting your products in-store, including :
Once you've defined your promotional strategy, the next step is to negotiate its placement in the store. This requires regular field visits from your area managers and sales people, to ensure that your promotions are well implemented and effective. These in-store interactions are crucial to the success of your promotional efforts, and that's what we'll be looking at in the second part of this article.
📌 To help you meet your in-store visibility challenges, I invite you to read our complete guide to merchandising in supermarkets.
Be there for your customers
Effective in-store visits are an essential pillar in guaranteeing optimal product presence. These visits must be strategically planned. The Area Manager plays a key role, taking on a wide range of tasks, from assessing store conditions to monitoring the competition and checking stock levels.
To support these missions effectively, training is crucial for two main reasons:
Once they've been trained in your brand's message, your sales reps need to be rigorous about the frequency of visits. That's why it's important to prioritize which stores to visit. We recommend targeting active stores where product holdings are low or have recently fallen.
During these visits, your area managers will collect the information they need to analyze your presence. It's a good idea to provide them with simple reporting forms, focused on clear objectives. These will help sales reps to identify which products are present or absent.
Identify corrective actions
Analyzing the data collected during in-store visits is crucial to effectively assessing the presence of your products. By observing the presence or absence of your products at each point of sale, you can calculate key indicators such as :
By evaluating the evolution of DN and DtN, you can identify the need for action to improve the visibility and presence of your products in-store. An increase in these rates generally indicates sales growth and improved reliability of presence and merchandising data.
It's also important to monitor specific aspects of merchandising, such as price surveys, the presence of point-of-sale displays, or the number of facings. This information is fundamental to making informed strategic decisions.
Ready to improve the visibility and presence of your products? We'd love to hear from you!
