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Traditional Trade (a.k.a Kirana Trade) plays a dominant role in the Indian retail industry and carries a giant bullseye, which is targeted by retail companies of all standards and sizes. Everyone wants to excel in this potential $1 Trillion Kirana Trade. But this sector is highly unorganized which makes it difficult for companies to execute and track compliance.
The primary difference between the big retail chains and traditional trade shops is the in-store retail execution. The big stores are designed in such a way that they give out a visual and psychological appeal to the customers. The stores are properly organized with SKUs placed aesthetically across shelves. Such is not the case with the traditional stores. The appeal is not the same as they don’t have thousands of dollars or rupees to invest in visual merchandising. In this blog, we look at the ways in which brands can apply retail execution at the traditional store to increase compliance and sales.
1. Shopper Experience at the Traditional Stores
Shopper experience is crucial in retail execution. At the traditional stores, shoppers experience mainly revolves around trust and long term relationships with the shopkeepers as well as brands. Sometimes, even the shopowners also stick to selling the brands in demand and refrain from selling multiple brands.
In these cases, it is important for retailers to try and convince the shopowners to vouch for their brand products. As a brand, it is important to make sure your product offering is better than or on-par with the existing brands. Unless the shopowners put your brand on proper display, there is very little chance that shoppers will buy them. It is not a new fact, anyway, that shoppers will buy only what is visible to them easily.
2. Brand Visibility and Product Availability
Though no planograms are followed at these stores, the retailers understand the importance of visibility and availability. Planogram and planogram compliance may seem to be impossible in these places, but that's not always the case. Product management of some manner does happen to give the shoppers an idea of what products are available in the store. But, since this space is limited, the owners usually assign them to their top-selling products.
Brands looking to gain visibility in these areas should research which products have maximum visibility. If you choose to have a higher profile, then you need to negotiate a deal involving visibility, promotional banners, and manual persuasion.
3. Promotion and Pricing for Retail Execution
Just like the big supermarkets, promotion and pricing are critical in the traditional trade as well. In regards to pricing, two major factors drive sales. The first is to have proper knowledge of the competitor's price for similar products. And, the second, is to make sure that your products are being sold on the maximum retail price.
In terms of promotion, there is only limited space for any kind of advertisement in the store. So, large-size promotional ads are not possible. The most common promotional sight in traditional stores is of hangers, flyers, window/shelf strips, etc. Portable promotional banners outside the store is also an impactful promotional technique.
4. Sales Reps Management for Retail Execution
Tracking sales reps is very important in the process of retail execution. Very often it happens that sales reps do not follow the instructions provided to them by the merchandiser. They might not place the product in the right way on display. They might also not put up the promotional stickers or banners properly. All these redundancies affect your retail strategy which would directly affect sales.
Optimizing the sales reps' daily performance at the traditional stores will ensure better results. These days, big brands are opting for computer vision technology to ensure that the reps adhere to the instructions provided to them. Computer vision technology acts as the eyes and ears of the merchandising managers in the stores. With its help, they easily spot bottlenecks and take instant corrective measures This would help them measure the reps performance store-wise and reward them accordingly.
AI-Powered Retail Execution in Traditional Trade
Applying retail execution strategies in traditional trade is not as easy as it would be at organized retail stores. It requires a lot of research, time, and multiple trial & error methodologies. But with the right weapons, this trillion-dollar behemoth can not only be tamed but dominated as well. As we mentioned in a previous blog, a retail execution solution with the right features can provide instant, useful insights and pave way for assessing and implementing new execution strategies.
ParallelDots retail execution tool ShelfWatch helps retailers achieve the desired in-store execution and compliance with the help of image recognition technology. Image recognition is an advanced feature that can automatically detect out-of-stock, empty spaces, the share of shelf, the share of visible inventory, planogram compliance, and competitor strategy at the store level. The reps capture images of the shelf using ShelfWatch's data-collection app and upload them on ShelfWatch's cloud. The tool analyzes the images and detects individual SKUs to deliver reports in near real-time for corrective actions and strategic decisions.
ShelfWatch helps brands easily achieve the desired compliance which, otherwise, is extremely difficult to achieve in the unorganized sector. The whole process also becomes much more efficient and cost-effective as compared to the manual process.
Found the blog useful? Learn how you can deploy Shelfwatch in traditional trade.
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