Sales strategy vs reality on a shelf

Every producer asks a question, how to convince consumer to take from a shelf its product, and not the one of a competitor. Many different approaches can be use here, like focusing on price, package, availability, but also merchandising standards. This is a quite a big area, with various techniques here like proper product exposing, picking the best place, proper stock (in a shop but also on a shelf), proper price, agreements with shop’s owners.

However, the question remains as to how to control those standards. How can we strive for the perfect store?

One of the solutions here is the audit. Cyclical, comparable and non-subjective assessment. This allows us to track the store's evaluation on the timeline and make appropriate adjustments.

Here are some basic questions to ask yourself beforehand:

do we have our own stores with a designed appearance, or are they only avenues or shelves;
what do we know about our products on the shelves;
are the shelves and alleys with our goods similar, repeatable, can they be grouped;
whether we have planograms;
can we define evaluation criteria and analysis methodology - the results should be comparable and non-subjective;
who can perform the audit, eg traders, store owners, audit, service technicians;
are visits to the store cyclical?

The audit process itself consists of 3 main elements:

Planning (Defining indicators such as planogram compliance, price, adequate shelf stock, presence of competition and prices. And planning site visits.)
Execution (Guiding a sales representative during a visit to the store, providing a tool for efficient work and step-by-step elements to be performed, e.g. surveys, tasks, questions)
Analysis (Collecting the results on an ongoing basis in the system. Comparing them on a timeline, e.g. by product category, points of sale or chain of stores, merchant, program, type of contract, etc. Let's follow the trend and take action)

The solution that will support us here is SAP Sales Cloud and its element "Perfect Store". Cloud and mobile solution.

We start the configuration by defining an engagement map that will define the merchant points to visit and evaluate - entrance, alley, promotional stand, cash registers.

Let's also define surveys that will allow you to collect more accurate data.

Let's also define the next steps of the entire store evaluation - e.g. meeting with the manager or proposing a new offer.

We can also equip traders with a machine learning tool, which using a photo of a shelf from their tablet, will indicate whether there is something missing in relation to the planogram (e.g. drinks, alcohol, cosmetics, pharmacy).

From the visit, the trader can start follow-up activities, for example:

sending a service team

sending marketing materials

subsidy

application for correction of the contract with the shop

Let us present the results of this assessment for the previously defined KPIs.

And finally, let's check the trend of, for example, a given store.

To sum up, how Perfect Store can help business:

organizing the visit planning process
building engagement maps for both cyclical assessments and periodic actions, eg promotion assessment
flexibility of questionnaires
image processing and comparison with planograms
electronic signature of the store manager
GPS data from visits
quick sharing of information in the system
analytics on a regular basis
follow-up activities