A strong retail presence means making your products attractive and available to consumers so as to realize sales. To achieve this, constant monitoring of a brand’s performance by conducting a retail audit is the cornerstone to a strong retail strategy. For a brand’s relevancy in todays consumer world, a strong retail execution strategy is imperative.
In this article, we shall unveil the different types of audits performed during an in-store visit and some important data sales reps should audit during in-store visits.
But first, do we know what a retail audit is?
Let’s dive in!
Retail Audits are studies done by sales reps on selected retail outlets to measure the general health of the brand and its products in stores.
Types of Retail Audits
Merchandising Audit – For brands that rely on in-store methods to achieve sales, performing a merchandising audit is vital. This depicts growth by giving brands an overall health of what is on shelf. Constantly doing a merchandising audit enables sales reps to track inventory and avoid the dreaded term “Out of stock”.
Below are some necessary components to include in your merchandising audit:
-Product Availability
-Share of Shelf
-Share of Display
-Price Indexing
-Competitor activity
-Activations
-Price compliance
Competitor Audit
Getting an inside look to your competitors performance as a business is important. A competitor audit done by your sales field reps achieves this!
Knowing what products your competitors are stocking, their price points, shelf facings, market share among other key information is imperative.
This information enables you to know what the market is demanding at that time and in turn may prompt you to tweak a few things in your business to suit the market, if need be. Make sure not to fully emulate what your competitor is doing! Know what’s favorable for your business.
In a competitor audit, be sure to capture the following
– Who are our competitors?
– What are their product prices and SKU’s ?
– Are there any promotions in progress? If there are, capture the discounts/ offer details. -Are there any promotions in progress? If there are, capture the discounts/ offer details.
-Share of Shelf – How have their products been placed on shelves?
-Share of Display – Are there any additional placements ?
Promotional field Audit
If your brand is running a sale or any other type of promotional activity, tracking performance is key so as to know how it’s performing in the short term and how to improve in the future.
Be keen to take not of :
– The type of promotion running
– How long the duration has run/ will run
– Featured products SKU’s
– In-store position
– Sales results
Market success is dependant of accurate and timely data acquisition and analysis. With accurate and adequate market data, maximization of sales, good customer experience and a productive rapport with retail outlets is created.
It is with no doubt that the market, consumer behavior and consumer preference constantly changes. Being in a position to track these changes and adapt strategies in sync will guarantee your business success.
How has the execution of Retail Audits helped your business? Do let us know!
