November 17, 2020 by Alec Veinger – You hear it all the time and yes, it may sound cliché, but knowledge is power. Without knowledge how can you make the right business decisions? Today’s version of knowledge is based heavily on insight gained from data.

Oftentimes we ask retail execs if they know what’s happening inside their chain stores. Their response? “Why yes, we have security cameras in every location.” Though this answer makes sense, it’s more than simply keeping an eye on the day-to-day activity in your stores. It’s about having the ability to easily access accurate store-level details. How do you get it? How can it help you? Read on to learn more.

Maximize Space Planning

Using outdated information to make merchandising and marketing decisions can be a recipe for retail disaster. Rolling out a new strategy or campaign takes months if your teams don’t clearly understand your store’s space planning, product allocation and brand messaging execution.

For example, a sporting goods retail chain conducted a site survey of its 220 stores to create a single source of truth that ultimately helped maximize store space planning. The merchandising and marketing teams now have improved visibility into store-specific data such as square footage allocated per each department to maximize store layout plans based on sales per square footage and how many fixtures require branding assets and the exact number required for what each store needs.

Additionally, the data collected helped perfect the retailer’s store-specific marketing and installation guides allowing their visual merchandising teams to strengthen in-store merchandise placement. The new guides optimize customer traffic flow, enhance product categories and brand messaging, drive cross-merchandising, create a better overall shopper and employee experience, and help boost sales.

Use Data to Prevent Print Overages

Having access to accurate store-specific data guarantees 0% overage and makes sure the exact POP quantities needed for each site are being delivered correctly. Most printers force retailers to order 8-15% more POP than the stores truly need to combat database errors and because of the inability to develop store-specific marketing kits. Tapping into store-level data allows your printer to create precise store-specific kits which can lead to up to a 45% savings in wasted POP.

In the case of Crocs, a leader in casual footwear, this retailer didn’t have the data to create the appropriate graphics each store needed. By guessing store distributions, wasted funds were spent on print overage and reprints. Surveys of Crocs stores uncovered thousands of dollars in savings.

Gone are the days when rollouts involved an abundance of reprints due to inaccurate sign types causing confusion with store employees. What’s more, by using store profiling technology the visual merchandising manager now knows exactly where and how to safely and efficiently house that data.

Reduce Capital Expenses

Replacing or updating equipment that’s still under warranty is a waste of time and money. If you work in the grocery or convenience retail space, you’re familiar with the cost and labor involved in replacing coolers or roller grills. Having the right data can help your operations teams from unnecessarily purchasing new equipment that may still be under warranty.

Surveys can provide quick and easy reference to warranty information needed when planning and budgeting for new items. Sharing this data via a cloud-based platform as opposed to e-mails and spreadsheets allows everyone in your organization visibility into the status of your equipment warranties. This is especially helpful if you’ve acquired stores with different brands of equipment than you may be familiar with.