Retail Operations
22 June 2022
In 2014 we carried out some research to determine the potential ROI of making incremental improvements in VM compliance in stores. From the survey, we discovered that the primary channel for VM compliance was email – with as many as 70% of retailers in the UK using this.
Email is a highly effective tool for communicating with colleagues. We can’t argue with that, but we do have to ask:
Is email is the best tool for helping store teams deliver brilliant brand standards?
Nothing beats a store visit from a VM expert to help make a store shine. But VM teams can’t visit every store every day. That’s why you need specialist technology to give your store teams the guidance and inspiration they need, and VM teams a faster, better way to manage store standards and brand compliance.
The evidence
In 2013 an in-depth survey [1] was conducted by Retail Info Systems in the USA on “Optimizing In-Store Merchandising”. In the report, nearly 54% of respondents felt that a “Disconnect between merchandising, marketing and store ops” was the key challenge they faced in ensuring VM compliance:
Could it be that this disconnect is as a result of email and spreadsheets communication? We think so.
But we would say that!
The same “Optimizing In-Store Merchandising” survey asked senior-level retail merchandisers to estimate the percentage of lost annual sales they attribute to non-compliance of in-store merchandising. According to 37% of those surveyed, non-compliance is the cause of 3% of annual sales.
A company with a £100 million in annual sales could lose up to £3 million as a result of in-store merchandising practices. The scariest part is that nearly 15 percent of respondents thought the percentage was more than 14 percent.
Where does StorIQ’s visual merchandising module come in?
StorIQ for Visual Merchandising supplies a collaborative platform for retail teams to share, manage and review in-store visual merchandising standards. The cloud-based software can track task completion, manage campaign compliance, and shows you how your creative vision has landed.
VM teams can send launch guidelines to stores, which will appear where your store teams need them: their Store Dashboard. Straightforward photo uploads make it easy for stores to share photos, giving head office teams instant visibility across the portfolio, and enabling rapid feedback.
As Leonardo DaVinci said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – and we completely agree when it comes to your VM tools!
This blog was first published January 2017.
[1] http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-research/Optimizing-In-Store-Merchandising87245
Looking for ways to see how StorIQ can assist in your retail operations? Click here to see what our platform could do to improve your internal communications. Or click here to download StorIQ’s RETAIL THRIVES AGAIN eBook.
