Retail is a demanding and competitive sector: brands seek to gain distribution and increase their number of points of sale, but unfortunately the size of the shelves remains the same...
And yet, this is the place to be: over 90% of household purchases are made in the major chains.
It's a war of positions between manufacturers. In an average hypermarket, where more than 20,000 SKUs can coexist, according to Nielsen, it's vital to focus on measurable, actionable data to develop market share and sales.
Together, we're going to explore the essential KPIs to track for a supermarket brand, those that will help you understand and boost your sales performance. With the right use of data, every figure becomes a tool to optimize your presence and strengthen your brand's position.
Before you have KPIs, you have raw data. This raw data is collected by your sales reps during their sales rounds. So you're not there to check that it's in. And yet, having confidence in your data is essential: if you're not sure that your data is reliable, how can you interpret it? How can you make decisions based on it?
It is therefore important to ensure the reliability of your collected data, in particular through :
And now that you're sure your collected data is correct, let's take a look at the KPIs to track.
Tracking the right KPIS in supermarkets enables us to anticipate and react quickly to changing trends and consumer expectations. More than a measurement, KPIs are an indicator of success and a guide to strategic decisions.
Performance in retail is linked to a precise and rigorous analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs). It is based on your main levers (the 4Ps) implemented in the field by your sales team.
At Sidely, we have segmented the KPI approach into six crucial areas:
Sales force optimization
Sales activities include all events and actions carried out by the field sales force: visits, calls, tasks...
Keeping a close eye on these activities helps optimize the efficiency of teams in the field, and maximize the return on investment of promotional campaigns. Studies have shown thatsales people who follow a defined plan increase their productivity by an average of 20%.
Recommended KPIs include :
It is also interesting to track the evolution of events by sales outlet, over a given time granularity. This is particularly relevant in the case of new store openings, innovation launches or targeted promotional campaigns. This enables you to understand the direct impact of these initiatives on in-store traffic, and also to validate that your sector managers have indeed increased the number of visits to your retailers.
Finally, tracking the evolution of events by salesperson offers a clear view of individual performance, providing essential data to ensure that everyone is fulfilling their missions.
By analyzing these metrics, you can identify strengths and areas for improvement, pinpoint training and development needs, and ensure that sales efforts are aligned with your brand's strategic objectives.
Point of sale activation and optimization
Points of Sale are your stores. Their segmentation is a practice that enables a refined analysis of the performance of each business unit. This methodology, corroborated by data from the Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution (FCD), which states that an optimized store can generate a significant increase in sales, of the order of 15 to 25%, highlights the crucial importance of such an approach.
By segmenting your stores by status, such as priority stores (also known as gold), new customers, or active customers, you can not only assess the level of importance and potential of each outlet, but also fine-tune your marketing and distribution strategies accordingly.
Moreover, tracking the evolution of these statuses provides valuable data on the lifecycle of your distributor relationships.
Evaluating the effectiveness of promotional campaigns
Promotion is a marketing action that stimulates sales of a product or product category in a store or group of stores, over a given period.
Different strategies/mechanisms can be used to promote products at point-of-sale. So it's important to understand which ones work for your brand.
The success of your promotions depends on two factors:
These strategies are often supported by advertising (POS), goodies and/or animations at point of sale and/or in the media (radio, social networks), billboard advertising, etc.
To track the results of your in-store promotion, you need to check whether it led to an increase in recurring sales (VMH, VMM), but you can track several other KPIs:
Maximizing product and brand presence
The presence of your products at point-of-sale is a crucial indicator that can directly influence your sales and, consequently, your brand's overall performance. Tracking it allows you to identify where your products are present, and therefore understand the right activation of your stores.
To measure the presence of your products, you can track several KPIs:
It's crucial not only to measure these KPIs, but also to understand their evolution over time. This gives you a less static picture of your relationships with your distributors.
For brands operating on a multi-brand or multi-radius basis, it is pertinent to compare and analyze ownership and distribution by brand or department. This will give you a more macro picture of your presence and help you refine your sales strategies.
Ensuring the visibility of your products
Merchandising encompasses all the strategies and techniques used to present your products attractively at the point of sale. At Sidely, we take an in-depth approach to merchandising, leveraging accurate data collected in the field to go beyond traditional merchandising practices.
Effective merchandising is crucial, as it can influence up to 70% of in-store purchasing decisions, according to studies carried out by POPAI.
Here are the essential elements to keep an eye on for effective merchandising:
Using a digital solution that allows you to easily export all your reports is essential. This ensures autonomous management of your data, and helps you make informed decisions based on detailed, up-to-date analyses of your merchandising strategy.
Understanding your actual sales
Sales and orders are the financial reflection of your business. By focusing on sell-in, which measures direct sales to distributors, brands gain an initial perspective of their sales performance. However, to capture the full economic picture, it's imperative to track sell-out, i.e. actual sales to end-consumers from checkouts.
Market studies show that brands that succeed in fine-tuning their sell-out strategy can achieve sales growth of 10-15%. To flesh out this financial analysis, several KPIs are essential:
If you're in any doubt as to why checkouts are essential for identifying sales dynamics in supermarkets, our article on how to obtain and analyze your check outs can take the guesswork out of the equation.
The CRM solution that accompanies you on a daily basis is essential for in-depth analysis of your field and sales data.
The limitations of tools such as Excel, which can quickly become complex and unwieldy for large amounts of data, underline the need for a more robust solution.
Here are three essential tips for getting the most out of your CRM right from the start:
Clean data is essential for successful analysis. A consistent database will produce consistent results:
Regular maintenance is essential to ensure that your database is reliable and up-to-date, which in turn is essential for accurate reporting and effective monitoring of your business.
Avoid overwhelming yourself with too much irrelevant data. It's wiser to focus on a small number of well-analyzed key KPIs than to have a multitude of poorly managed data.
We suggest :
These optimized views can also be used by your sales teams to improve their organization. They'll save you and them time.
Tracking sales performance is just as crucial as tracking sales. They are the source of your data, so it's essential to ensure the quality of their work. A Numerical Distribution (ND) of 88% based on two statements is significantly different from a ND of 88% based on fifty statements.
Sales performance indicators to monitor include :
It's also crucial to share the data and insights gained from your analyses with the whole team, to optimize the organization and implement the necessary corrective actions.
In short, sales performance in retail is not just a question of numbers, but also of detailed analysis of retail KPIs and understanding of their interactions. Using advanced technology to dissect these indicators is essential to convert your data into strategic information.
