“The 12 Gifts of Retail Christmas” for a Happy New Year
On the tenth day of Christmas VM-Unleashed gave to me…
No.10 “The Strategy to Increase the Frequency of Customer Visits.”
One KPI improvement that can have the most decisive impact of sales levels is to increase the number of times your loyal customers visit your stores.
Whilst this involves a range of marketing initiatives from store windows to social media campaigns the key to success is the strategic planning of the assortment and promotional dynamics which drive customer visits but also protect margins and drive commercial performance.
Understanding the sales dynamics of your assortment and how to plan, manage and stimulate the rates of sale of categories and SKUs is essential to generate maximum profit from sales and realised margin
A lack of accurate sales measurement, a failure to act on prices, and a lack of awareness of the impact of different sales promotions often results in slow sales dynamics and ultimately much reduced final margins.
- how do I control and stimulate my rates of sale whilst protecting my margins?
- how do I know which sales promotion mechanics are correct for my brand?
- how do I add value to my brand through promotions?
- how do I know which sales promotional strategy and timings to employ to increase rates of sale of slow movers?
- how do I identify when a product requires sales stimulation and how much?
- how do I integrate my newsletter, loyalty club and social campaigns with the stores?
This is how we help…
Sales promotion, pricing & seasonal events
“How should I deliver the optimum strategy for my retail business on product price points, sales promotions, seasonal events and added-value messages, to drive required rates of sales whilst protecting my margin?
Overview:
Assessment of existing relationship between assortment price architecture, margin, sales promotions and impact on rates of sale and realised margin, set against a comparative market assessment on pricing and sales promotion mechanics and dynamics
- Assessment of current sales/profit KPIs related to sales promotions and price architecture
- Assessment of current effect of price reduction of rates of sale, margin and cash generated
- Assortment review of key products – best & worst sellers, basics, price heroes
- Realistic and realised margin review
- Assessment of current omni-channel retail calendar and branding strategy against competitive market
- Analysis and comparison of best practice competitors price and sales promotions strategy
- Analysis of existing client loyalty programme, promotional mechanics and KPI impact
- Comparative analysis of competitor loyalty mechanics and sales promotions
Benefits
- Identify opportunities for entry and average price leverage
- Identify margin capacity to absorb and support a variety sales promotions mechanics
- Identify sales and promotional trends within the stores weekly, monthly and seasonal dynamic
- Identify opportunities to leverage loyalty clubs and/or newsletter/sms initiatives
- Identify best channel communication for sales promotions
- Plan the seasonal retail calendar with integrated sales promotions
- Identify the best in-store delivery of price and sales promotions
Process:
- Analysis of existing price & sales promotions, loyalty club initiatives
- Interviews with central marketing & merchandising heads
- Analysis of sales performance and rate of sale KPIs
- Best practice competitor analysis
Aggressive actions:
- Re-alignment of store pricing
- Redevelopment of retail calendar and introduction of new sales promotion initiatives
- Modifications to the category/assortment focus of promotions
- Improvement to graphic delivery of price & promotions
- Improvement to store space planning delivery of promotions
- Development of use of loyalty club & customer databases
- Changes to dynamic and content of email/SMS promotional communication
Check out more of our series of “audits, analysis, answers & aggressive actions”
Please get in touch. We’ll be happy to help & advise…
+44 (0)7967 609849
tim.radley@vm-unleashed.com