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Where 70% of shopping decisions are made in-store, the difference between success and failure often hinges on the execution of your retail strategy. Consumers are highly influenced by what they see on the shelves—enticing displays and attractive price points can easily sway their purchasing decisions, even if they entered the store with a specific product in mind. However, achieving perfect store execution is no easy feat.
CPG manufacturers and Retailers face numerous challenges, including inconsistent execution, poor shelf management, and a lack of real-time insights. Overcoming these obstacles requires a robust retail execution solution that not only streamlines operations but also boosts the productivity of sales reps and provides real time visibility and critical data for informed managerial decisions.
Effective Retail Execution Solutions
To achieve a perfect store, it is crucial to leverage an effective retail execution solution that addresses the core challenges faced by CPGs and retailers today. Such solutions offer several key benefits:
- Increased Efficiency of Retail Operations: By automating routine tasks and providing real-time data, retail execution solutions significantly enhance the per-store sales. These tools streamline processes such as on-shelf stock management, and shelf audits, allowing for more consistent execution across multiple stores.
- Improved Productivity of Sales Reps: Technology solutions will bring back the sales in a salesman, they say. A well-designed retail execution solution empowers sales reps by equipping them with mobile tools that provide instant access to their custom journey plans, store visits, audit & product information, previous shelf data, sales data and promotional guidelines. This enables reps to execute their tasks more effectively, reducing time spent on manual processes and allowing them to focus on driving sales.
- Real-time Data Collection from Field Teams: Gathering data directly from sales reps and the mobile devices of merchandisers is a critical feature of an effective retail execution solution. This ensures that managers receive up-to-date information on stock levels, promotional displays, and store compliance, enabling them to make informed decisions quickly.
- Providing Real-time Insights for Supervisors/Managers: The ability to analyze real-time data is essential for managers to monitor store performance and address issues promptly. Retail execution solutions offer dashboards and analytics tools that deliver actionable insights, helping managers optimize store execution,, product placements, pricing and promotional strategies.
Also read: Perfect Store Execution: Setting New Standards To Win At The Retail Shelves
Must-have Components of a Retail Execution Solution
To fully realize the benefits of a retail execution solution, it is important to understand the essential components that drive its effectiveness:
Real-time Analytics
One of the primary challenges in retail is processing and analyzing data in real time. A robust retail execution solution integrates real-time analytics, providing a unified view of data across various channels. This feature allows CPGs and retailers to monitor brand distribution, ensure on-shelf product availability, track purchase trends, and respond to market changes immediately. The structured data generated through these systems ensures that teams have accurate and actionable information at their fingertips.
Also read: Share of Shelf Execution What, Why and How of Measuring SOS using Image Recognition
Revamping Point of Purchase Display Strategy
The placement of Point of Sale Materials (POSM) plays a critical role in influencing customer purchasing decisions. A comprehensive retail execution solution includes tools for optimizing POSM placement, ensuring that promotional materials are prominently displayed by the stores as per set guideline. Features like frequent/rela-time POSM checks for merchandisers and promotion monitoring assist in the effective execution of promotional campaigns, while comparison tools allow CPGs and retailers to measure the performance of their promotions against competitors.
Implementing Best Practices in Share of Shelf
Optimizing the Share of Shelf is vital for maximizing product visibility, brand-share and sales. Maximum Share of Shelf reflects maximum market share. Advanced retail execution solutions incorporate image recognition technology to manage shelf space effectively. By utilizing intelligent color-coded grids and other visual tools, these solutions help ensure that products are positioned correctly, leading to better shelf management and increased sales.
Also read: Realtime Shelf Execution Data for Ensuring Retail Store Compliance
Reconciling Disparities and Preventing Stockouts
Out-of-stock (OOS) situations are a major concern for retailers and CPGs alike, as they can lead to significant loss in sales and thus revenue. A reliable retail execution solution provides unified tools for performing on-shelf stock checks to enable brands to replenish orders, minimizing the risk of stockouts and ensuring optimal stock availability across categories in every store.
Also read: Boosting Store Sales by Improving OnShelf Visibility A Complete Guide
Driving Up Store Sales
To drive sales, CPGs and retailers need a 360-degree view of their per-store sales activities and customer preferences.. Retail execution solutions equipped with built-in intelligence provide recommendations such as Must Stock Lists and Next Best SKUs, helping retailers identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities. By leveraging these insights, retailers can enhance both sales and operational efficiency, ultimately leading to better financial outcomes.
Also read: Perfect Store Execution: Setting New Standards To Win At The Retail Shelves
ParallelDots: A Comprehensive Solution Provider
ParallelDots offers advanced retail execution solutions designed to address the challenges faced by CPGs and retailers in achieving perfect store execution. With a focus on leveraging AI and real-time data analytics, ParallelDots provides tools that help retailers optimize their operations, enhance shelf management, and ensure consistent execution across multiple locations.
Key Solutions Provided by ParallelDots:
- ShelfWatch for Real-Time Shelf Monitoring: ParallelDots' ShelfWatch is an Image Recognition-based platform that provides real-time monitoring of shelf KPIs such as (On-Shelf Availability, Share of Facings & Pricing) , ensuring that products are always well-stocked and correctly placed. This solution helps brands and retailers maintain optimal shelf availability, visibility and reducing the likelihood of out-of-stock situations along with improving overall sales performance.
- Image Recognition for Planogram Compliance: ShelfWatch also utilizes advanced image recognition technology to ensure that products are placed according to planograms. This feature allows category and sales teams to automatically detect discrepancies and make adjustments within a few hours , ensuring that shelves are always aligned with strategic merchandising plans.
Also read: Boost Shelf Visibility with Image Recognition: Key KPIs Analysis
- Trade Promotion Monitoring and Optimization: ParallelDots offers tools to monitor the execution of promotional activities across stores. By analyzing how well the POSMs and displays are implemented and their impact on sales, retailers can optimize their marketing strategies, ensuring maximum ROI. AI-Driven Insights for Decision Making: ParallelDots provides brands and retailers with actionable insights derived from real-time visual data. These insights empower managers to make informed decisions about inventory management, product placements, and promotional strategies, helping to optimize retail execution, improve store performance and enhance the shopping experience.
- Automation and Scalability: ParallelDots' solutions are fast to train, designed for scalability, making them suitable for retailers with multiple store locations. The automation features streamline various tasks, from shelf audits to stock replenishment, allowing retailers to focus on strategic initiatives rather than routine operations.
By integrating ParallelDots' comprehensive retail execution solutions,CPGs and retailers can overcome the challenges of inconsistent execution and poor shelf management, ensuring that they achieve and maintain perfect store execution across all their locations.
Conclusion
Achieving perfect store execution is no longer a distant goal but a necessary standard in today’s competitive retail environment. CPGs and retailers face numerous challenges, from inconsistent execution to out-of-stock situations, investing in a comprehensive retail execution solution becomes imperative. These solutions not only helps teams gain access to retail execution data, they also help streamline operations and enhance sales rep productivity but also provide real-time insights that are crucial for informed decision-making.
Book a demo with us to see how our advanced retail execution solutions can optimize your shelves, boost sales, and keep you ahead of the competition.
