Merchandising is an art really, the art of making your products sell themselves to your customers. Successful merchandising maximizes DSD sales and enables a business to keep ahead of the competition by ensuring that its products are displayed and promoted properly.
Traditional merchandising has taken on a new dimension with the advent of mobility. With mobile merchandising software, field sales reps can capture vital information about in-store performance, which is instantaneously made available to operations managers, who can then take appropriate action.
Here are five ways that make mobility essential for effective merchandising in today’s retail execution environment:
1. Optimized shelf space
Ideal inventory levels can be maintained and retailers’ shelves kept filled with best-selling items by performing stock checks on the spot using a barcode scanner and processing replenishment orders on the reps’ mobile devices.
2. In-store data collection
Information about new product introductions, point of sale advertising, competitors’ strategies, sales activities, pricing and more can be captured and used to streamline merchandising activities and improve the performance of field reps.
3. Survey taking
Customer satisfaction and sales staff questionnaires as well as market research surveys are easily carried out using built-in or customized templates, with the results analyzed to enhance customer satisfaction and increase sales.
4. Photo taking
Photos of storefronts, shelves, displays and promotional materials can be taken at retailers’ as well as competitors’ locations — these are automatically geo-tagged, categorized and organized into libraries for subsequent mining by managers.
5. Retailer compliance monitoring
Information concerning product display, pricing, planograms and more can be easily captured, to keep track of retailers’ compliance with marketing strategies and any contractual agreements.
Mobility has changed the world we live in. Brands and distributors of consumer goods are well-advised to leverage the power of mobile apps in their merchandising strategies in order to maximize sales order management software and stay ahead of the curve.
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