Like most manufacturers with a distribution network, you may find yourself wondering whether your customers are interacting with your brand as you would like them to.
So, in order to have a positive impact on the shopping experience and increase sales, you need to define a set of recommendations for the presentation and availability of your products at point-of-sale.
This is when retail execution enters your strategic plans!
Let's explore what's behind this very American expression, and how it can benefit your company.
Here we go!
Distribution is full of terms invented by our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic. The one that interests us today is still little used in France, and yet so important!
Retail Execution is the set of activities deployed by a brand to ensure that its products are well positioned, correctly displayed and well managed in retail stores.
This includes several actions, such as :
Retail execution is a key activity for ensuring proper business execution and maximizing sales at the point of distribution. It is also referred to as retail execution.
These strategies are adopted not only by manufacturers and the sales agencies they mandate to execute their strategy, but also by the brands themselves. Each player in the chain ensures that its own points of vigilance are respected, and it's not uncommon for the respective interests of each player to give rise to opposition, as not everyone can get what they want! In this way, competing brands can vie for the same facings, shelf-heads, POS space and other strategic advantages at the point of sale.
Finally, brands' commercial execution strategies are not always aligned with those of retailers themselves. In the world of supermarkets, manufacturers are trying to implement trade marketing strategies, with the aim of promoting synergies with their distributors, rather than confrontation.
Let's just remember that all players in the distribution chain want to increase their results and profits by mastering the standards and processes that promote commercial performance.
💡 In the end, while the retail execution of chains and chains of stores generally aims to harmonize the shopping experience and create a place identity, that of brands aims rather to accelerate performance measurement by sales reps in order to allocate more time to selling.
For retailers and brands alike, in-store (or point-of-sale) execution strategy encompasses all the guidelines and standards that define the way customers interact with a product - in other words, their shopping experience.
Companies must therefore define standards, and these must be applied to all the points of sale concerned.
Good point-of-sale execution has a considerable impact on product performance, not only because the guidelines help to increase product visibility and availability, but also because standardized merchandising helps to create a specific brand image and customer experience.
Retail execution incorporates all these guidelines, as well as the tools (e.g. performance CRMs in supermarkets), promotional actions and best practices that help create a coherent, unified shopping experience, whatever the outlet the shopper visits.
The benefits of a good retail execution strategy are numerous:
For employees responsible for deploying and checking retail execution, the guidelines help them to know what to do and what to evaluate. For example, a retail sector manager can optimize his time during a field visit by quickly checking the ten or so control points indicated in his retail execution guide.
Dedicated software tools have been developed to speed up information feedback.
Designing and deploying an execution strategy in your outlets is not enough. Your distributors rarely follow your recommendations to the letter, and this forces you to check shelves and planograms during field visits.
A retail execution application facilitates and accelerates the collection and feedback of information directly from points of sale. Featuring an ergonomic design that enables sector managers or agencies in charge of line-scanning to enter crucial data at top speed, these solutions streamline the reporting of strategic elements of your retail execution:
So when you equip your sales force with an application designed to facilitate and accelerate retail execution control, you enable them toallocate more time to selling and negotiating.
To achieve the optimum level of performance, it's important to design point-of-sale sales execution to suit your industry.
For example, a FMCG brand will send its sector managers to supermarkets to check the number of facings, the share of shelf space, compliance with the planogram, the positioning of POSM (point-of-sale) installations and supports, and shelf availability. It is also important to facilitate recommendations and minimize the risk of stock-outs.
The on-trade channels are not to be outdone, particularly when it comes to POS positioning, which is highly strategic for getting people to test and consume the product. Most beverage brands, for example, try to place their POS at the bar or cash register. The retail execution team can also plan appointment schedules in line with the customer lifecycle, for example, ensuring that the sales representative leaves the appointment with all the relevant information (new beer spouts installed, evolution of the target clientele, expansion of the consumption area, etc.).
But compliance with the standards set out in a retail execution strategy is not enough to guarantee success. Ideally, this success should also be achieved at low cost: in order to onboard the teams responsible for enforcing the directives, they need to be able to grasp them easily, and to carry out the tasks quickly and easily.
For example, an area manager in a supermarket is not supposed to spend his time doing shelf-space surveys, especially if this prevents him from interacting with his counterparts, the department manager or the store manager. Retail execution must therefore combine compliance with directives with effective application. Ultimately, it serves sales performance from every angle.
Another aspect to bear in mind is the disparity of distribution networks, which can make it difficult to harmonize sales practices. For example, if you distribute your products through independent distributors, you'll need to redouble your efforts to unify sales execution across all outlets. Hence the need to provide your area managers with clear recommendations on what to check during their visits, and what performance indicators to monitor.
On the other hand, remember to encourage feedback from your field teams: your retail execution must evolve to adapt to a changing economic context, particularly in the face of aggressive and inventive competition!
Finally, it is important to support sales staff when standards are not respected. Missing point-of-sale displays, a wrong number of facings, a product in the wrong aisle... For each failure, the head office or the brand takes the necessary steps to rectify the situation as quickly as possible, and the regional managers back up their sales.
Retail execution must be carried out with the conviction of serving the company's overall performance. Don't skimp on training, motivation and education!
