Category: Blog

How to Enhance Your Merchandising Performance

April 29, 2021

How to Enhance Your Merchandising Performance

Brands and customers need to have a positive connection. Checking your merchandising performance is a crucial part of retail management to understand which product is performing well for your customers. Also, retail is a competitive market. To stay grounded amongst other competing brands, you need checks and analysis! Briefly, you need merchandising performance analysis to:

  • Stay connected to your customer
  • To maintain a healthy competition
  • To maximize sales

To crack the deal and seal the day! A brand must know how to enhance merchandising performance. Here are ways in which you can do it!

Using a Merchandising Software:
This helps you to streamline heavy data and reduces the cost of data collection. It allows the brand to act faster and more efficiently. Reducing manual work. This is how it can enhance your merchandising performance:

  • Store shelf organization – Shelf organization, is made efficient. Barcode product search, built-in reports, automated data entry- are all tools designed to control product location. It also ensures price and that there shall be no gap between the products on the shelf.
  • Stock level maintenance – It reduces the risk of damaged stock, out of stock and overstocked items in your business. Because they can lead to a negative impact on your sales, orders and returns can be made from any store with just a couple of clicks on the monitor or a smartphone. Merchandisers can also create proper orders by viewing order history and recommended order quantity to plan.
  • Promotional Compliance – Using a Must Stock List (MSL) merchandiser can create a planogram to check task forms. It also helps supplement data collection forms with pdfs, texts, photos, videos and other files.
  • Customer Survey – Helps capture customer surveys to capture and analyze accurate live data. Just by a button click!

So if you dream of being efficient, organized and want to be cherished by customers, don’t ignore enhancing your merchandising performance!

Here’s what you need to know about Mystery Shopping

March 24, 2021

Here's what you need to know about Mystery Shopping

We have all heard about undercover agents, right? Did you know companies have such secret shoppers too? Yes! They do. That’s what mystery shoppers are all about. They are undercover shoppers sent by a company, especially retail businesses, to check the company’s proper functioning.

Basically, mystery shoppers are paid undercover customers hired to shop and collect data. They are sent to observe, interact, and report employee behaviour and customer reactions to the company. These shoppers are hired by a third-party called Mystery Shopping Agencies; if not, they are provided by companies as Mystery Shopping Agents but are not employed by the concerned store or company directly.

These mystery shoppers are sent to stores, banks, restaurants, apartment complexes, malls, and mostly all the businesses where customer service and interactions are involved. They can buy items, return items, eat at a restaurant and perform all things a customer might. The point to be noted is, they are not for giving opinions but to only report, usually by filling a survey.

They can either act as casual customers and report from that perspective or ask specific questions to be “difficult customers.” Such as:

  • Number of employees on duty
  • How were you greeted
  • Speed of service
  • Customer wait time and help during product selection
  • The sales pitch that was given
  • Cleanliness of the store
  • Presentation and grooming of the employee- appearance and etiquettes
  • Conduct at the billing counter
  • Patience and devotion towards a customer and other attributes.

Here is why your service-based business shall have mystery shoppers:

Improves customer service- Nothing can beat practical exposure. While you can analyze and make reports that which area lacks sales, it requires additional time and energy and might not reveal practical solutions.

A good mystery shopping program helps reveal real situations and areas where work is needed. It can also help to find potential solutions before the sales are affected.

Excels behaviour- It is only natural that human interaction changes when they are under observation. When they are all by themselves—employee behaviour changes in front of peers and supervisors. At the same time, it can be different in front of customers. It can either improve as there is not any pressure or can be otherwise.

Mystery shopping program can help you see how your employees are behaving not only when they are in the frontline to fulfil basic tasks and duties but also how they are encouraging customers when they are being approached.

Ensures consistency- Consistency in maintaining quality and customer value is very important for a business. It shall remain same throughout all stores. Thus, a compelling mystery shopping program ensures such monitoring.

Maintains an all-round work environment- It helps in communicating clear expectations and what need to be done next? Also, what to do and what not to do? This allows the company preparing ahead of time and meet company goals and targets. It also helps get an overall Employee Net Promoter Score, to keep an account of employee’s loyalty and ambassadorship.

Initiating rewards and incentives- Every company wants to reward loyally and to its best employees. Mystery shopping program can help you recognize this in the right direction.

To conclude, there will always be ups and downs and newer technologies coming in- one thing that drives sales still is customer service. So, the focus shall never shift from improving that area. A mystery shopping program ensures that. You want to know more or want a mystery shopping agent? Call us on 022-6699668/ 022-6699672.

How to Build an Effective Store Display for Retail

March 12, 2021

How to Build an Effective Store Display for Retail

Retail store displays have already become an iconic thing in the shopping world that they have even attracted the creation of the term- window shopping. Most shoppers confess that they get allured with the impressive store display, which invites them to touch, try on, and explore the newest arrivals.

While you may not have any intentions of purchasing the product or any item for that matter, an effective retail store display can convert mere lookers into customers. So how will you master the art of retail display that looks good and appeals to the purchasing impulse of customers. Here are some tried and tested tips for you-

Go green
Including elements of green in your display can make the shopping environment more inviting. Create an environment that reduces your customers stress and make them stay longer in your store. Green elements can surely do that thing for you.

Go seasonal
If there’s a room to get festive, do it!! Your window displays are frequently changed displays because of the fact that it’s the most viewed. So take advantage of that space to celebrate holidays and special occasions.

Lighting
Ensure that your window display is lit up, especially with accents pointed directly at the products you want to feature. Good lighting helps your products pop and creates visual interest.

Use technology
There is a growing trend of incorporating technology within in-store displays. Video screens and tablets are the most popular ones. For example, a text enables your business to help your shoppers text in a particular keyword specific to your display. Send it to your number to immediately receive a coupon or discount on the goods/services. This, in turn motivates a sale.

With these simple tips, appeal to smart customers by giving your retail displays a perfect blend of function and fashion.

5 Techniques for Running an Effective Channel Advocacy

December 7, 2020

5 Techniques for Running an Effective Channel Advocacy

Every time your product enters a market, it might feel like the beginning of a new cycle. Once again, establishing a channel that would best benefit your product and again going through the process of creating a loyal customer base. It all sounds too easy! But amassing a loyal customer base through a channel is not possible until you employ advocacy measures.

So how to run a Channel Advocacy effectively? Here are 5 techniques that can ensure your success:

1. Create a plan
And then keep revising it! Because setting goals is essential. Once you’ve established a channel, you can get the goals and the cause you want to portray. How would you want to change the perception of your brand? Once you’ve set the goal, break it into small parts. Thus, every time you achieve this goal, revise it in a progressive fashion.

2. Engagement funnel
Create curiosity around your product because it’s not passion that would first get you the required customer base. These engagement actions should start at the most basic and then pave the way towards a higher barrier.

3. Go digital
Create your own digital community because they are as effective as your real-world community. Digital space can be used to mould opinions and attract a loyal following. This helps in creating a broader reach across time and space. So buckle up and leverage those digital platforms!

4. Target your outreach
No matter how hard you try, not everyone who shows interest initially will follow through. It’s vital that you recognize the sizeable amount of groups and communicate effectively with them. You must make sure to collect the data of these groups of people for future follow-ups.

5. Follow multi-channel engagement
It is nearly impossible to reach your target audience through one single channel. Experiment with different channels at first. This will give you an insight into which channel works best for which group. These little experiments will help you save more resources in the long run.

Are you on the lookout for a perfect channel advocacy program? Idonneous has research-backed strategies for channel advocacy that can help you gain a potential following. Call on 022-6699668 / 022-6699672.

Steps to Building Your Retail Merchandising Strategy

November 21, 2020

Steps to Building Your Retail Merchandising Strategy

Creating a retail merchandising strategy takes time and careful planning. And it rightly deserves the time and care, for this is how brands can position themselves in the stores.

For those starting, it might sound a bit daunting at first. But don’t worry! We’re here to guide you through the steps you need to follow to build your retail merchandising strategy.

Step 1: Decide Your Goals
Before diving head in, take a moment to decide what do you want to achieve with this strategy. Determine who your target customer will be. Your strategy should have a good foundation and later innovate the same for different seasons and target audiences.

Step 2: Store Layout
Convenience is key! And your retail merchandising strategy should be centred around this – plan on putting those items together that customers will be inclined to buy together.

Step 3: Utilise Signage Properly
The signage should entice the customers into buying your product. Treat them to an array of signage. The signage should be easy to understand and eye-catching so that the customer can understand and decide whether to buy the product or not without trying to understand what your brand is about.

Step 4: Interactive Displays
Create interactive displays to display your product, and in the future, you can even turn them digital to shift your customers to online platforms like apps or websites. A great example of this would be VR technology.

Step 5: Product Sampling
A study shows that 81% of consumers are more likely to buy a product if they can sample the same. Product sampling should have a separate budget allocation in your retail merchandising strategy.

Step 6: Social Media
As more people are taking a liking towards social media, your social media strategy should also become a significant component of your retail merchandising strategy. Your digital presence can increase your potential visitors. So, whether you have a product launch or an event, ‘Post About It’!

Balancing each of these steps can be challenging and often lead to a half-baked strategy. But Idonneous is here to help you create the best retail merchandising strategy. Contact – 022-6699668 / 022-6699672.

Customer Activation – Marketing with a Measurable Purpose

November 6, 2020

Customer Activation – Marketing with a Measurable Purpose

Being a marketing leader, you should know that a customer interacts with a brand at multiple touchpoints throughout their purchasing lifecycle. It’s the job of a marketer to ensure that this interaction has a positive impact each time, and the customer is redirected to the next stage. But, how do you measure the result of your combined efforts and its impact on each stage of a buyer’s journey. Well, customer activation comes into picture here.
“Customer activation means motivating customers to move to the next stage of their lifecycle faster than they would on their own.”
Or
“Customer activation refers to the act of motivating customers to fully realize the benefits of the product they are testing, hence increasing their overall engagement. The result could be generating a new customer or re-engaging an inactive one.”

But how do you activate your customers when there are millions?
The key here is to cultivate healthy relationships and work towards customer delight if you want to extract maximum value from them. Many of the marketers fail in customer activation by not delivering effective and relevant Emails.
So how do you get started with customer activation?

Know your customers
Engagement throughout a customer’s lifecycle is not only about the benefits you’re getting from your relationship with the customer, but also about the benefits and value you are providing to them. Get to know your customers, their preferences and what excites them to give them tailor-made offers and suggestions. Creating sustainable and engaging customer relationships is the top priority of most of the marketers.

Buyer persona creation
Buyer personas are your target customers. Based on the knowledge about your customer’s behaviours, preferences, demographics, needs, and geographic, you can create personalized campaigns for them to engage in a better way. To create buyer personas, ask questions to your current and potential customers, and client servicing persons who interact directly with your customers.

Identify digital behaviours
In today’s digital world, identifying the behaviour of customers is really easy now. You can keep a check on conversations going on over the internet, their feedback, and demographics. Almost every customer is active online these days, create a buyer persona and interact positively with them at every stage.

Map customer journey
After defining the customer personas, outline the stages of a buyer’s journey as a map. That way, you can develop multiple strategies to satisfy the customer at various stages of the map. Map out the stages based on the customer behaviours as they move through the lifecycle. Keep a check on the channels your customers switch to and the kind of information they want at each stage.

Move customers through the lifecycle faster
With the customer lifecycle and personas clearly defined at your disposal, you’re now in a position to craft personalized content and proposals that address your customer’s queries at each stage of the lifecycle. By providing them with the content they need, and type of offers they are looking for, you can trigger them to take action always.
If you are looking for an expert in getting the customer insights, or plan for customer activation, call on – 022-6699668 / 022-6699672.

Guide to a Successful Retail Account Management

October 31, 2020

Guide to a Successful Retail Account Management

A successful Retail Account is one where the relationship between a company that manufactures or supplies products and the retailers that stock them is managed seamlessly. The responsibility of which lies on the shoulders of the Retail Account Manager.
If your aim is to manage your retail accounts lucratively, you should follow these steps –

Alter to each client’s specific demands
You should know what your key accounts (the major retailers) need. The same strategy that works with your key accounts will not work with small independent retailers. If you are focusing on geography, then you should aim to increase profitability and sales across all your accounts rather than focusing on one.

Plan before all else
You should be aware of your revenue and profit targets rather than shooting arrows in the dark. Each account should have a defined target that you should be working towards. Even individual products should have specific targets within each account. Focus on the retail groups where you see an enormous scope of growth of existing products as well.

Relationship with the retailers
We don’t mean you should be friends with everyone, but you should definitely try building a rapport with your retailers. These are the people that could give you more sales and profits. As these might affect your stocks, delivery requirements, prices and discounts you should definitely try to be in the good books.

Internal Coordination
All your departments should be in sync, from sales administrators, customer service executives and managers of other departments such as logistics and accounting. This will ensure that your retailers will receive service of higher standards.

Business Development
You should never be satisfied with how good your account is doing at the given time. Always look for ways to increase the business. Create special incentive programs so that retailers increase their stock. Or create advertising and marketing campaigns that coincide with the retailers.

Do you feel that your retail accounts are underperforming? Are you unable to manage your retail accounts without a glitch? Then contact Idonneous Marketing Services, they provide solutions that would meet your needs. Call – 022-6699668 / 022-6699672.

Why Merchandising is a must in Modern Trade?

October 15, 2020

Why Merchandising is a must in Modern Trade?

Getting a product to the customer in today’s age of the internet is relatively easy. What is not easy is getting them to make a decision into buying your product. This is where merchandising plays an important role. Merchandising is the practice that helps the retailer sells its products. It is how effectively a product is displayed that compels a customer to buy that product.

Merchandising is a challenging task. It demands a lot of dedication and planning. Because your competitors also engage in merchandising, you have to continuously come up with something that attracts customers to your products over others.

Advantages of Merchandising

1. Appeals to the Customer
Effective Merchandising makes the experience of shopping for the customers easy. This makes them want to spend more. Merchandising also creates a loyal customer base. If you were able to create a pleasing shopping experience once, they would like to come back again for the same.

2. Improves Profitability
You can increase your business on your current customer base by Merchandising, as it enables repeat shopping by consumers. This increases not only your sales but also the footfall in-store. It also allows retailers to make better pricing decisions. Thus, growing business for the whole chain involved in selling your product.

3. Increases Employee Productivity
Merchandising helps you provide better customer service. Employees engaged in Merchandising gain experience in moulding customer opinions. They also understand the knowledge they now possess about the product adds to their value as an employee.

4. Increase Sales Floor Productivity
Not only it increases the sale but add more productivity to the floor by increasing the impulse and add-on purchase. Making the sales floor more attractive, organized and promote special buys. This makes merchandising a must-try tool in marketing.

Idonneous has mastered the craft of Merchandising. With many successful client stories and more being added every day, they are a leading name when it comes to Merchandising. To get your product in the limelight, contact Idonneous – 022-6699668 / 022-6699672.

Key to Digital Transformation in Product Lifecycle

October 9, 2020

Key to Digital Transformation in Product Lifecycle

For a long time, the Product Life Cycle has remained the same. It starts with the introduction, growth, maturity, and ends with the decline of the product. PLM was created to keep track of millions of parts of a product as a tool for manufacturing. Today, it has become oxygen for the survival of a product, not just in manufacturing but also in retail. But to exist in this super-competitive market, Digital Transformation is needed. Sticking to the same old cycle may just result in your product’s death.

With new and agile competition coming up every second, companies need to find ways to be faster and valuable to the customers with data-driven services. For this purpose, it is essential to create a digital strategy for PLM to gain in a sustainable manner. There are three key elements for digital transformation:

1. Data
Useful data is generated at every point of the product’s lifecycle. This data, when analyzed properly makes the product innovative and suitable for the market. This data should be shared across the company for improvement in production, better collaboration with suppliers, and to create value. Exponential development in sensors and data capture devices are a must invest tool, for a valuable digitized PLM creation.

2. Specified Teams
The data that is collected can only be put to its best use by the teams that will be analyzing it. So the second step should be to create multi-functioning teams in cloud management, data analysis etc. to get an idea whether the business has achieved what it needed to. And to also create new insight into what can be achieved further.

3. Data-driven platforms
As the business continues to grow, more and more data is being generated. As the volume increases, it becomes hard for on-site computing devices to handle them. For this purpose, High Performing Computing devices becomes necessary to deal with the enormous amount of data to accelerate the process of data tagging, generating new leads and integrating the data.

For companies starting out, the best way to implement this is by starting small, learning how data management and digital transformation creates more value for their product. Knowing what potential can be created by digital transformation is what Idonneous does the best and thus, has created the MIS Online Tool. To know more about this contact 022-6699668 / 022-6699672.

Distribution Channels: Ensure the success of your products

October 1, 2020

Distribution Channels:
Ensure the success of your products

Making sure your product reaches your desired customers is not an easy task. Gone are the days when one only needed to produce the product for it to sell. Today, one would need to plan where to put the product, or how to get the product to the consumers. For this purpose, Marketing companies use the tool they call Distribution Channels.

What is a Distribution Channel
A Distribution Channel is a set of steps that are taken for the product to reach in the hands of the final consumers. These steps may be offline, online, through some intermediaries, agents, or retailers.

To understand it with more clarity, imagine Colgate produced thousands of toothpaste and displayed it outside the production plant in hopes of selling it. Doesn’t make sense right? Now we know that Colgate is one of the largest brands selling toothpaste in India. The reason is that they employ multiple distribution channels at a time. Possessing the knowledge of where, how, and why to position their product so as to maximize its reach. Thus, making Distribution Channels one of the most rewarding tools if applied correctly.

How to build a distribution channel
The simplest way to create a distribution channel would be to answer a series of questions about your product and the targeted customer. These could be
1. Is your product a stand-alone product or needs supplementary service?
2. How can it improve the shopping experience?
3. What do your customers need?
4. Are your customers familiar with the type of product, or do they need to be educated or trained for its use?
5. What is the fastest positioning that meets your customers’ demands?
6. What should be the tone of the product?

These are only a few questions that could make sure that the channel you create makes the most impact. It is not always necessary that one product employs one Distribution Channel. There can be different Distribution channels running at the same time to reach maximum customers.

Idonneous Marketing Services has helped achieve scalable success for many products from the first moment by employing an efficient Distribution Channel every time.

To know how you could utilize most of your resources, call us at – 022-6699668 / 022-6699672

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