Smartphone use during working hours is frowned upon in most businesses, especially when it involves outside contractors or field staff – such as merchandisers and marketing reps – or, even worse, store employees.
Big data is the word “du jour”. While being able to analyze large amounts of data and detect patterns, trends, and associations from such analysis might be beneficial for retail businesses, small manufacturers, distributors, and channels might feel like they are left out, since the cost of implementing Big Data can be prohibitive. However, recent cloud-based technology means software for retail execution has become easier – and more affordable – to subscribe and implement, opening the door of Big Data to small businesses.
Having store audit report templates can greatly reduce the amount of time spent reporting. However, many retail audit apps available on the market do not offer the flexibility needed to fully customize templates, both for data collection and for report generation.
Mobile technology revolutionized many industries and retail is no exception. Working with an in store audit system is now a welcome reality for sales and marketing agencies, retailers, and manufacturers alike, since they streamline an old-fashioned, cumbersome process.
New advances in artificial intelligence have given rise to much-needed image recognition technology for in store audit apps, which allows quantifiable data to be extracted from pictures.
Retail-related activities generate a lot of information. However, reporting for retail audits and merchandising can be quite intimidating, and reading through sheets and sheets of data is hardly an effective way to pinpoint in-store issues that might be affecting retail sales. In that scenario, important issues such as frequent out-of-stocks can get lost within the large amount of information coming from different reps and locations.
Marketing departments are constantly facing the challenge of being considered cost centers instead of revenue units, even in industries where marketing is front and center – such as in consumer packaged goods (CPG). But how to measure your brand’s growth in a way that will show upper management that every dollar invested in marketing leads to increased revenue?
A mobile app for retail execution allows reps to perform physical counts and other in-store activities right on their mobile devices. Additionally, since most retail sales audit software solutions run on the Cloud, office-based supply chain professionals have instant access to audit results, allowing for virtually no lag time between data collection and reporting.
Fraudulent check-ins, besides being unethical, can lead to a host of issues for businesses. Out all of them, fraudulent check-ins are especially detrimental due to the consequential overlooking of mission-critical issues such as out-of-stocks, hazardous displays, or damaged shipments. But how to prevent or even eliminate fraudulent check-ins of merchandisers and reps?
Planogram compliance checks and retail audits take a lot of people and, along with it, exponential amounts of paperwork and transcription effort. Because of that, solutions for merchandisers have gained a loyal following among CPG companies and their sales and marketing agencies. But in which ways is a solution for merchandisers streamlining planogram compliance checks?
