With a mobile merchandising app, smartphones and tablets not only replace the old pen-and-paper method – virtually eliminating cumbersome data transcription – but also become de-facto merchandising auditing tools that provide managers real time access to retail planogram compliance check results.
Merchandising reports can seem complex to build but, with the right piece of software, merchandising and category managers can easily organize multiple store data in a way that will lead to the appropriate action by management.
Retail planogram compliance checks used to be notoriously complex activities due to the scale of operations necessary to implement them on many stores – and then transcribing sometimes thousands of pages of data in order to generate reports. VisitBasis solution for automation for merchandising in store came into the market with the purpose of making recurring retail planogram compliance checks drastically easier to implement and report – and it delivers.
Knowing your customer is the first step in having a successful business. However, for CPG businesses, sometimes the customer might seem unreachable, especially considering all the layers of distributors and retailers between them. Having merchandisers at retailers performing customer surveys is one of the traditional ways that manufacturers have to get in touch with their market and field merchandising software has revolutionized the way these surveys are performed.
By implementing an app for retail execution, managers will completely eliminate this lag time between retail data capture and reporting and even go beyond: businesses can exponentially increase the breadth of data it collects by developing in-depth forms and generate merchandising reports much more representative of their retail channel realities.
Most retail manufacturers, distributors, and agencies have adopted digital tools for merchandisers to perform in-store activities. The advantages are clear, from having all data in digital format from the moment it is captured to the ease of scheduling and planning in-store tasks for reps.
Calculating retail merchandising metrics such as product, category, and store KPIs is an essential part of many businesses, from large CPG companies to supermarket and drugstore chains. However, collecting the source data beyond what is supplied by cash registers can be incredibly complex, since it might involve ground teams with dozens or even hundreds of people.
One of the main concerns of field sales managers is the little oversight they have of their reps’ activities throughout the workday. For this reason, many businesses have been adopting field sales management apps as a way to increase rep accountability as well as mentoring tools. By knowing what is going on in the field, managers can identify areas of opportunity and properly coach their teams.
Adopting a retail execution software solution is the best way to win in today’s hyper-competitive market.
Retail marketing has been going through many changes lately brought by technology but mobile applications are probably what affected the industry the most.
