If you are not already consolidating your materials with your retail channel partners, now may be the time. Many retailers have robust programs in place to execute their in-store marketing programs and often consolidate items at a single location before shipping into individual store locations. By combining your signage and promotional materials with your retail partners, you can receive the following benefits while making it easier for your partner to work with your company.
Easy Ordering
Most retailers have some form of online ordering for store managers to order signage. By linking your site to the retailer's site, store managers can easily order your materials. Managers are already trained to go to their store's site making it easier for them to order materials that promote your products. For example, if a display product is sold off the floor it is possible the promotional signage leaves with the customer. To keep your product visible, make it easy for managers to get new signage.
Reduced Freight Spend
Save on freight costs by shipping to one location for each retailer instead of shipping to each individual store. Ship to your retailers’ centralized location for non-retail materials and leverage their systems that get the right items to the right department on time. Often retailers kit their signage and other non-retail materials into a single shipment that is delivered on an expected date to individual locations for resets.
On-Time Delivery & Improved In-store Execution
If your retail partners send regularly-consolidated shipments to their stores and you are able to include your items in their shipments, you can be sure that your items will hit your in-store market dates and that the store personnel will be ready to setup your materials and know exactly where it goes in the plan-o-gram. This makes it easier for your retail partners to manage all the various signage from vendors. If they aren’t doing this already this might be a great value-add idea to share with them to help them save money and time. Suggest they kit items by utilizing individual store labels that include the store number, kit number, department, content description, and addresses. They should also package these kits in a visible manner so in-store personnel know they are non-retail items and need to go straight to the floor.
Saving your retailers time up front translates to significant cost savings in the store. For example, if every store spends one hour at each promotion trying to figure out where your materials are or where they go across 1,000 stores that equals 1,000 man-hours wasted for each promotion. If you do multiple promotions in a year that is substantial savings you can offer your partner.
To learn more about these tips contact Archway at ask@archway.com.