Before launching any new campaign in retail we often have to do backward planning. Sometimes even week before actual launch which brings its own challenges & then lats minute hassles of not meeting the timelines of launch. Most of the campaigns launched in retail footprints does not meet deadlines of covering 100% of the WOD due to one or another practical challenge which India as a diverse country has.
Traditional but largely accepted method of POSM execution is through store to store visits by field executives (often called as Visual Merchandisers or VMs) wherein they deploy the POSMs in stores & capture the reports through online applications. This method is widely used in all sectors be it telecom, retail, IT, FMCG, or automobile industries. However, it comes with a huge burden of cost to the company. 85% of the total expenses related to manpower staffing of these VMs are related to there salaries & reimbursements. Thus, optimising VM productivity & visit effectiveness is the ultimate goal for the companies to gain maximum return on investments.
It is a method for retailers to communicate about the products, schemes, services or any other important information about the brand or store to their prospective consumers who walks-in to their stores. Think of POS, scheme related to POSM elements or any other forms of communication. Currently, there are many ways to deploy in store communications. There are traditional methods such as deployment & refurbishment of point of sales material which talks about services/offers/products, exclusive fixture installations which indirectly influence customer attraction etc. or there are modern ways of communication such as experiential marketing techniques, virtual demo of products in store, live demo of products, using augmented reality to showcase features of products & services, 3D holographic displays & advertisements etc. Despite, having too many methods to use in store communications as a way to increase impulse buying & improved consumer awareness, we need to understand the best & effective ways to improve on in-store communications too. Let’s talk about how to improve the effective in store communications:
Visual Merchandising is done with an objective to increase the impulse buying & awareness of the products & services which a brand has to offer. Indirectly it is considered as a support function to increase sales & thus requires continuous efforts to go hand in hand with sales strategies in a company. On the other hand, sometimes sales strategies come up with different schemes & spikes in markets which are time bound made with an objective to increase sales in a specific time period such as festivals or special occasions. Now, to ensure those sales strategies met desired results there are few activities which should be implemented perfectly within that time frame. Out of those activities Visual Merchandising is one of them & can be considered as one of the most important activity.
Retail is considered as edge for the marketing where shopper experience can be converted to consumer base. Shoppers can play a pivotal role in leveraging the brand performance. This has happened due to dispersed media channels. More & more channels are being launched for the media sources & thus consumers are shifting their attention away from traditional sources of information. Brands are accordingly shifting their marketing spend closer to point of sale resulting in increase in connect with shoppers.
