Out-of-stocks are a major problem for any retail business. When a customer comes in looking for a product and it is not in stock, the sale is already lost and, in the process, the customer might convert to another brand or store. But how to shorten the time between an out-of-stock and replenishment or, better yet, how to prevent out-of-stocks to happen in the first place?
VisitBasis has been providing software for merchandising automation in store for several years and one of the issues we hear the most from our customers is that they want to implement a system for minimizing out-of-stocks at retail stores.
Retail software for merchandising made it possible for management to have up-to-the-minute access to data captured at stores.
Retail audit solution can help CPG businesses produce timely and relevant reports not only by dramatically speeding up data collection and eliminating transcription, but also by providing merchandising report samples.
Every retail-centric business has to perform merchandising activities. From stores to manufacturers, distributors, and marketing agencies, companies in retail need to make sure that products are being distributed and displayed correctly. It generates huge amounts of data. This means that detecting threats and opportunities within the captured data becomes increasingly difficult as business grows, therefore mission-critical issues such as frequent out-of stocks or damaged shipments can easily be overlooked.
Having store audit report templates can greatly reduce the amount of time spent reporting. However, many retail audit apps available on the market do not offer the flexibility needed to fully customize templates, both for data collection and for report generation.
Retail-related activities generate a lot of information. However, reporting for retail audits and merchandising can be quite intimidating, and reading through sheets and sheets of data is hardly an effective way to pinpoint in-store issues that might be affecting retail sales. In that scenario, important issues such as frequent out-of-stocks can get lost within the large amount of information coming from different reps and locations.
A mobile app for retail execution allows reps to perform physical counts and other in-store activities right on their mobile devices. Additionally, since most retail sales audit software solutions run on the Cloud, office-based supply chain professionals have instant access to audit results, allowing for virtually no lag time between data collection and reporting.
Planogram compliance checks and retail audits take a lot of people and, along with it, exponential amounts of paperwork and transcription effort. Because of that, solutions for merchandisers have gained a loyal following among CPG companies and their sales and marketing agencies. But in which ways is a solution for merchandisers streamlining planogram compliance checks?
Merchandising and brand managers traditionally work at a CPG manufacturer headquarters or regional office, isolated and sometimes blissfully unaware of what actually goes on with their product or brand at actual stores. This not only affects their perception of their product’s positioning, placement, and price but it may lead to inappropriate strategies, damaging sales in the long run.
