The first Australian industry study on Shopper Marketing involved depth interviews with leading companies (n=19) and an online survey (n=134) with a representative sample of company sizes and roles across the industry. This sample exceeded that of similar international research studies, so  thanks go to all the participants.

The resulting report, entitled “Shopper Marketing – The Journey Begins” outlines a comprehensive benchmark of Shopper Marketing in Australia – attitudes, status, activities, successes and roadblocks.

“Shopper Marketing – The Journey Begins” outlines robust research findings, along with the industry’s take on key opportunities and future directions.

The Survey  will be activiely discussed in industry media in forthcoming weeks.

The report can be purchased on the POPAI website via the following link http://www.popai.com.au/Market-Intelligence/documents/DocumentDetails.aspx?GUID=3c4d80e0-d802-4978-9264-c2b9aae21cdf

Workshops on the findings of the report will be held as part of the Retail and Marketing at Retail Expos at Sydney Convention Centre on Wednesday 22 September. Details at http://www.popai.com.au/Events/September-2010/Shopper-Marketing-Research-Findings-Workshop.aspx

Shopper Marketing: The Journey Begins

POPAI / ShopAbility Shopper Marketing Industry Benchmark Survey 2010

Supported by TORCHMEDIA

• Leverage the learning from Australia’s first Shopper Marketing Industry Benchmark Survey
• Harness the findings with implications and actions to move forward
• Participate in the industry discussion as solutions and frameworks are canvassed
• Be at the forefront of developments

If you want to know about the state of play in Shopper Marketing, please join us for this key industry discussion and applications workshop on the findings of the first Australian Shopper Marketing Industry Benchmark Study.

This workshop is designed for people working in FMCG, retail and related agency suppliers with responsibility for, alliance to or interest in Shopper Marketing.

It has also been developed for participants in the Survey who want to gain the most out of the summaries they have received.

On the agenda:

• The scope of possibilities emerging from the findings, including implications, opportunities, plans to move forward, and some initial solutions and frameworks development
• Discussion of results for those who did not participate in the survey
• Group / industry workshop of findings implications and applications

$395 standard price

$325 for POPAI members and Survey participants (individuals, not companies)

Includes:

• Copy of the full report, valued at $495 (emailed in pdf format along with workshop outputs)
• Sector specific (manufacturer, retailer, agency) report summary valued at $95
• Presentation and groupwork of implications and opportunities
• Summary of workshop outputs (to be emailed subsequent to workshop)
• Refreshments.

• Wednesday 22 September, 2010
• Half day seminar/workshop
• 9am – 12 noon
• (8.30am for 9am start)
• Bayside Terrace Room,
• Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre
• Darling Harbour
• Held as part of the Retail and Marketing at Retail Expos

RSVP by emailing popai@popai.com.au with “Shopper Marketing workshop RSVP” in the headline

Or

Book online  - http://www.popai.com.au/Events/September-2010/Shopper-Marketing-Research-Findings-Workshop.aspx

Supabarn

Mustang Avenue Canberra

Well here we go! – I really was expecting to see something different with this store  based on what my FMCG contacts had to say. And I wasn’t disappointed – but in the wrong way!

I visited this store with another experienced industry figure and for the life of us, we could not work out if this store was trying to be a Costco clone, a little bit of Aldi, a failed Campbells Cash and Carry or a reversion back to the old Jewell super stores that popped up in the 90’s. Whatever the real answer, we were left with the view that this store just does not make it on any of those counts.

To be fair, we visited around 5.30pm on a bleak Canberra Thursday evening, dark and cold outside, drizzling with winter rain.  The store is located near the airport and we were one of about 6 other Customers in the store, so the tribal feel of a price driven shopping experience just was not there, if it is intended to be at all.

Apart from a woefully inadequate Fresh offer, in width of range, quality and in presentation standards the overall feel was one of a cold barn with long sterile aisles that had an inordinate amount of out of stocks.

A very shallow grocery range complemented the Fresh offer nicely. The ends were up but there was little cut carton action to tempt the moths out of the wallet. Ticketing and POS was reserved to say the least, not shouting a competitive set that embarrassed the majors or congratulating Shoppers for making the right decision to shop there and save! Plenty of own brands, imported branded products that were hard to recognise and a few large pack sizes in certain categories. But again not in the concentration that said what this store stands for.

Oddly General Merchandise is in a separate room off to the right as you walk in the entrance, somewhat like a decommissioned cool room with large doors and warehouse racking – no width or depth of stock at all – half or full shelves of SKU’s that one would think bore no resemblance to their actual AWS…or case size…or SRP unit…or anything else

Pricing appeared sharp, but what Price is adequate if the offer looks and feels inadequate and uncompetitive to a comparable Woolies, Coles or even an IGA for that matter.

In summing up, I hope I don’t appear too negative from the outset,  but either this store is under trading by a country mile and management is taking steps to frugally operate the store, or someone made a serious (and costly) mistake when the initial site and design assessment was completed.

Make your own mind up by either visiting the store or having a good look at the accompanying photos. I’ll also revisit and report back again before Xmas in the interests of fair play, maybe we just got them on a bad night…..maybe.

Coles

Dee Why

And here we go again! – now this is more like it, we are at the new Coles Dee Why on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, opened just 3 days before this scribe decided to do a Saturday afternoon visit.

True to form this is another development on the refreshed store theme that we are seeing pop up all over Australia and the one that continues to keep Woolies back peddling, and this is a brand spanking new store. From a Shopper perspective it is a pleasure to shop in and you can see the little improvements that are added as each “new” refreshed store is opened. Store location is a little awkward as it sits one floor above ground level reached via lifts or travelators – this may influence local shoppers as there is another Coles and a Woolworths within 2 minutes, and a new Harris Farm is directly below on the ground floor, time will tell but that does not take away from the ambience and standards shown in the store.

Unlike most new store openings, this one opened without the usual fan fair of 100’s of deep cut specials across the store, but with an elegant catalogue leveraging Masterchef and with a discount off for selected SKU’s and a $ offer off the total purchase value redemption vouchers. Obviously all of the regular Coles weekly specials were up and ready for action so the overall price thrust was still very evident.

For a change, Indian is at the front entrance rather than at the back adjacent to an on-the-run chilled case, and that has pushed Seafood and Meat to the back corner. Cheese and Deli is in the middle of these Depts and to the usual standard for this format and judging by the queues, were doing a roaring trade. The overall Fresh format is sufficiently well known by now so I am not going to comment on that, sufficient to say it is good, very good. One plus was that Coles have finally started to put some cross merchandising in and around  the open dairy and meat cases, little barrels of stock neatly ticketed – the whole area still cries out for more, much more but it may be a CODB issue or a decluttered feel that Coles want to continue to drive with the fresh area.

Bakery is located at the back of the store, again combining proprietary Branded bread and in house Bakery. Focus is on driving the baked fresh for you theme.

Each Dept is also fine tuned to the local area and Coles proudly boast of supporting local manufacturers – a boast that they live up to with products sourced from as close as Brookvale (a serious throw with a cricket ball) and Manly Vale (about 2k’s away). They also photos and wording to reflect the beach side site and Customer base, a nice touch to “localise” the store.

The key destination Depts that Coles have targeted such as Health and Beauty did look great, and you are hard pressed to notice that the range has been significantly cut. Entertainment and Paper Shop is also a “new” destination Dept and looked the part and was well frequented by the locals. Extensive GM ranges were also show cased, but in a separate aisle location and not cross merchandised. No clip strips were evident at all.

I am looking forward to seeing one new store with all of the key destination Depts completed and trading .

Coles have also made “promises” for service, out of stocks and PL performance which clearly positions their view of Customer service – and in this store it is all about the Customer, plenty of attention by plenty of knowledgeable and keen staff.

One thing that was out of place for a new store though was the Reduced to Clear tickets on some SKU’s – for a 3 day old store????

So overall another opening of another refreshed store.

Bring it on!!

Harris Farm

Dee Why

Well here it is – the latest Sydney based offering from the Harris family right underneath the new Coles described above, and also right in the middle of a fairly intense fresh food competitive area with two other well established fresh malls close by. Harris Farm also have stores at Manly/ Queenscliff and at Mona Vale so they are a known retail brand to the local Customers.

This is a small store with the usual forced flow through Fresh leading to an extensive Mediterranean range of Grocery products. It feels smaller than the Kings Cross store we reviewed in May, but the shape is also quite different. Again narrow aisles do not facilitate browsing as trolley clashes would annoy rather than excite. Presentation was standard HF fixtures, water fall stock and the fluro product and price tickets  = standard fare and why change if it works?

It did not look too much different to other Harris Farm stores apart from what seems to be a more defined Grocery offer at the end of the Fresh run, this may have been more to do with the type and location of the fixtures. Some of the Grocery ranges were normal products you’d find in Woolies and Coles, and the impression I got was that this store leans more toward the normal flow and departmentalisation of the traditional players, albeit without the dominance of the well known Brands, but with a slow creep of other Tier 2 and 3 products.

Overall a neat copy and paste of the regular Harris Farm offer and one that should carve out a solid business base in this area.

* Gain more confidence presenting & communicating
* “Fear-busting” – losing the barriers & defences that hold you back
* Interactive, exercise-based training
* Working with a video camera & playback for maximum learning
* Tailored and relevant exercises e.g. roleplays etc
* NIDA –trained tutor  with international experience and FMCG understanding

Training is designed to optimise the presentation and communication skills of your team and is highly interactive and exercise-based.

Modules are either presented as half-day sessions, or full-day workshops with two modules combined in one day.
1. Presentation Foundations
2. Creative Presentations
3. Voice & Body
4. Communication & Personal Style
Presentation Foundations is the first course preceding all other optional modules. All courses involve the use of video camera & playback and group exercises

Presentation Skills Training is generally offered in the context of broader training programs including Retailer Negotiation Skills, Category Management, Retailer Category Presentations and a wide range of customised, specific training for companies.

The training involves:

INTERACTIVE GAMES

• Fear-busting & confidence
• Communication reflexes
• Flexibility & responsiveness
• Accessing the right brain / creative side
• Using memory in presentation

TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

• Voice & speech
• Body – language & gestures, movement
• Presence
• Communication
• Confidence building
• Mental focus & fear-busting
• Tips for ongoing practice

WORK TO CAMERA

• Amplifies areas of strength and of need
• Enables participant to view themselves for maximum learning
• 360 degree feedback mechanism
• Challenging and fun group work / role plays
• Relevant presentations e.g. elevator pitch

CUSTOMISED DEVELOPMENT

• Individual participants
• Tools & tecnhiques tailored to individual needs
• Take-away materials
• Access to video footage (reference)
• Customised ongoing programs where appropriate (separate scope)

About the Trainer: Lee McAllistair

* As a NIDA –trained presenter and performer Lee has worked internationally across multiple live and recorded communication mediums including television and radio (UK and Australia) and  as a live presenter / performer in the UK, Asia and around Australia.
* In addition to her NIDA training Lee holds a Masters in Communication Management, holds more than 10 years’ senior marketing & FMCG experience and is a founding member of ShopAbility for the past four years.
* Her marketing work has won industry awards including the Australian Marketing
Institute, Public Relations Institute of Australia and she has consulted to clients
including Coca Cola, Sony Pictures, Blackmores, National Foods
and Foster’s Group.
• Lee’s performing work has earned her favourable reviews in UK and
Asian press, having performed at major events including a sold-out five week
season at the largest Festival in the world, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
(generally known in the Industry as “the slaughterhouse” for how
unforgiving it can be to performers).
• In a presentation training capacity, Lee’s focus is on pushing through
the inevitable fears associated with presenting and communicating to
others, using interactive exercises and the “great amplifier” of all fears:
A video camera.

For all Training and Company Capability program enquiries please call Peter Huskins on 0412 574 793 or peter@shop-ability.com.au

One of the findings of the Shopper Marketing Industry Benchmark Survey (findings to be published in Retail World in August) was that most companies, if they had more shopper marketing resources, would devote them first to shopper insights and shopper research.

So there is a common understanding of the NEED for shopper insights, but less understanding of the scope of them or how to use them. One of the most common questions clients ask us when discussing shopper research is ‘how is it being used – do you have any case studies?’

So we’ll remedy that here with a bit of an overview of what shopper research encompasses, how it works and how to use the results.

INFORMATION VS INSIGHT

First, let’s clarify what is merely information vs what’s an insight, because the terms seem to be used interchangeably but they’re not actually the same thing.

Information is simply that. Often quantified. Eg, ‘40% of shopping trips in Category X in Retailer Y are Stock Up shops’.

So what?

The insight is what you infer from that information (which may be added to other information for the purpose of deriving insights). Insights will often be the ‘why’ behind something. Eg, ‘so what’s really going on here is …’.

Shopper data (such as Homescan – basket penetration, AWOP, spend etc) and shopper research (attitudes and behaviours) will yield information, but it’s your job and the research agency’s job to figure out the insights – and implications (‘so what this means is … ‘).

Not all information will yield an insight (some information is just background information), although all true insights SHOULD yield an implication.

Don’t feel you have to mine every data point for an insight, you might be looking for things that aren’t there because the shopper behaviour ‘just is’.

SHOPPER DATA AND RESEARCH SCOPE

Shopper research is attitudinal as well as behavioural, where shopper data is behavioural and/or the outputs of the behaviour. Shopper insights are most powerful when attitudes and behaviours are married to behavioural outputs. Ie, when you blend together

It’s even more powerful when you marry your shopper data and research with your consumer research (particularly usage occasions). There’s not a clear cut line from when the consumer becomes the shopper. The Shopper Marketing survey highlighted this, with 75% of respondents believing that shopper starts outside of or before the store, not just in it.

We look at shopper research as covering a mix of what we call the ‘5Ws and 5Hs’: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, How Often, How Many, How Much, and How Long. See Figure 1.

Fig 1: The Shopper Research 5Ws and 5Hs. © ShopAbility 2009.

Some of the 5Ws and 5Hs will yield tactical insights and others will provide more strategic direction. As a general rule, the Hows tend to be tactical and the Ws are strategic. This varies depending on the category and channel.

What shoppers can tell you – and what they can’t
Shoppers can tell you about what they think now – what they like, don’t like and why. They can tell you about things they prefer or would like to see (different category layouts etc).
What they can’t do is forecast the future or tell you what the category or channel drivers are. That’s your and the research agency’s job to figure out.

SHOPPER RESEARCH AND INFORMATION METHODS

Good, holistic shopper research combines exploratory (qualitative) and evaluation (quantitative) methods. It combines both ‘claimed’ (what they say they do) and actual (‘what they do do’) behaviours.

This is because just running instore components won’t tell you Whys or Hows in depth (particularly in a 5 minute instore interview where you’re  in a chilled area and shoppers don’t want to hang around), and just running qualitative interviews or focus groups won’t give you How Manys, for example.

Claimed methodologies will give you things like perceptions and attitudes, why they behaved that way, frequency, trip type, who buying for, purchase and usage occasions, and intended vs actual purchase.

Actual behaviour capture methodologies will provide you with things like where they go instore (navigation), how many go where (traffic), how long they take (duration), what they do (interactions – browse vs buy), and who they are (gender, age).

Figure 2 is an outline of what types of major shopper research methodologies answer which of the 5Ws and 5Hs. (Note that it’s not exhaustive, rather it’s indicative). Quantitative methodologies like instore interviews and online surveys can be used to put numbers around what comes out of the qualitative depth interviews, particularly for Hows and Whats, so it’s not completely clear cut.

Fig 2: The Shopper Research Methodology Matrix © ShopAbility 2010.

Instore observations (as opposed to interviews) do not interact with the shopper. At the other end of the spectrum, techniques such as instore workshops and instore focus groups can be used to get shoppers to perform tasks and exercises – and gather perceptions and experiences from these – in real time and in more depth than an instore interview would normally yield.

Where there’s not scan data, home scan or actual data available, if you have to you can run with claimed behaviours (eg online surveys and omnibus) for things like frequency, AWOP, and spend.

Techniques like Eye Tracking, which are essentially a form of video footage taken from the shopper’s point of view so you can see exactly what they are looking at (or what they aren’t) are normally a part of a broader methodology like Accompanied Shops or Shopper Diaries. This is because just looking at the footage in isolation without commentary around what they were there to buy or what they are thinking isn’t particularly useful in itself, for how much it costs (except perhaps maybe for quantified category layouts).

THE NEED TO BE CHANNEL AND RETAILER SPECIFIC

Shopper behaviour and perceptions changes by retailer, and individual retailer objectives and priorities vary.

Whilst some findings will be common across similar retailers in the same channel, not all of them will be. And they certainly vary by channel, starting with who the shoppers are, to what trip type they are on (shopper mission) and degree of planning/openness to impulse, among other things.

An example of channel variation is grocery (Coles, Woolworths) vs mass merchants (Big W, Target, Kmart). In grocery around 30% of shopping trips are stock up shops. Stock up shops largely don’t exist in mass merchants, as evidenced by the small number of trolleys employed in mass (outside of Christmas). Where grocery the majority of grocery trip types fall into the Stock Up, Top Up or Dinner Tonight categories, mass merchants skew more to shopper missions like Destination, Gifting, Entertaining and Leisure/Browsing.

Within channel, behaviours also change. An example is IGA vs Coles and WW in grocery. IGA shopping trip dwell times are around only half the average trip time in Coles and WW because IGA shoppers are doing more Top Up, Dinner Tonight and Entertaining shopping trips than they are Stock Up. The trip time, missions and shoppers all skew differently.

If you do research specific to each retailer you can blend together brand supplier and retailer objectives, hypotheses and priorities. These all vary by retailer and by supplier so you need to cover all bases, yet with a tailored methodology.

The other benefit of this is that all parties are engaged upfront ,and can be confident that the results that come back will answer the key things they are interested in.

What we haven’t discussed here is specific types of shopper research based on a specific brief, eg price and promotional modelling and choice modelling, which can get pretty technical. If you’re interested in these let us know and we can discuss in subsequent articles.

APPLYING THE FINDINGS

So now you’ve done a piece of research answering your 5Ws and 5Hs. Now what do you do with it?

First off, do the insights derivation exercise where you look at all the data that’s come back and ask – ‘What’s really going on here?’

Then you need to determine what the implications (‘What this means is …’) arising from the insights. A good screener question to ask here is ‘Do we care?’ to make sure you’re focussing on the big hits rather than sweating the small tactical stuff.

Lastly, you need to turn the implications into an action plan (‘What are we going to do about it?’), with priorities, and allocate who is responsible for what actions. Then you and the relevant retailers/manufactures need to get together to discuss what is going to go into market, either as a trial or as an initiative that is rolled out on scale.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?!

So, we hope that helps clarify a few points and shopper data, shopper research and shopper insights.

In our next contribution we’ll walk you through some of the key findings from the Shopper Marketing survey … interesting stuff!

Until then.

All participants receive a FREE summary of the findings in July. The survey is now running and closes on June 2. Click the link below to participate FREE in the online survey, which will take approx 30 mins to complete. http://www.ys3.net.au/surveys/5/y100514register.asp .

There are already some interesting findings coming out of our intial industry interviews, and we expect to be running workshops in July to work through the findings – stay tuned for details!!

You can support the benchmarking study further by forwarding to a friend in the industry. If you think someone else involved in, or with views of the shopper marketing and category functions, would be interested in participating (and receiving the findings), please send them this link -http://www.ys3.net.au/surveys/5/y100514register.asp .

The more the merrier for a robust sample and holistic view.

Thank you for your participation, we look forward to presenting you with the results!

Geoff Frost

As former CEO of Bartter / Steggles, Geoff headed up the company’s transition from a $35 million company in 1987 to more than $900 million in 2008, implementing business improvement programs to reduce debt by $20 million per annum and restructuring the Sales function to better meet customer needs.

Since 2008, Geoff has been involved in various due diligence roles and has assisted with the evaluation of potential business acquisitions by individuals and equity investors.

John Day

With a reputation for strategic thinking and a realistic approach John has had more than 25 years of General Management and Senior Management experience in blue chip companies such as National Foods, Simplot, Mars Confectionery, Masterfoods, Uncle Bens and Bowater Scott. He has held General Manager roles across a number of functional streams including Sales (all Channels), Marketing, Distribution and International and Domestic Business Development. In addition he was General Manager of National Foods Milk Operation (Victoria) and on the Board of Management with Simplot, heading up the Shelf Stable Division with brands including Leggos, Edgell, and Plumrose.

John’s expertise covers all channels including Grocery, Convenience, General Route, Catering, Institutional, Distributor, Delicatessen and other Foodservice Channels. Whilst he has had many successes and achievements in this time, from a Grocery perspective he led the team which achieved the biggest Housebrand Tender in FMCG, that being the Woolworths National Milk Contract in 2002 for National Foods.

Geoff and John join our core members Peter Huskins (ex Senior Exec & Board levels with Franklins, Millers & Grace Bros) and Margaret Haseltine (ex CEO Mars / Masterfoods) to provide a comprehensive and results-focussed business strategy service for our clients.

Click on the links to find out more about our Business Regeneration & Strategy services.

You can also download our handy Business Success Scorecard.

From the outset let me state that this store has only opened stage one of a major refurb so the comments are not based on looking at a complete “new” store, but on one where there are still builders walking around looking busy, hoardings and plastic sheets covering the next stages and a centre store Grocery area that is yet to be touched.

But the word on the street is that this refurb is Woolies response to the Coles refresh program, so looking at the first stage as an indicator of what is to come is a fair and worthwhile exercise and relevant for industry discussion, especially when it covers most of the Fresh depts – and they are the key depts in a Shoppers mind that they use to determine their store of choice. So from a rollout/ on-going perspective this store is an important indicator of the evolving competitive playing field.

Also Woolies are using their local Shopper data base to publicise that fact that in their view certain of the Fresh Depts are open for trade and in their “final” positions and layouts etc .

New fresh departments at Woolworths Caringbah
Hi XXXX,

We’ve got some great news about the renovations at Woolworths Caringbah! Our new fruit and vegetable, deli and seafood departments are now open.

The new market-style fresh produce department is now lighter and brighter with wider aisles, giving you a better view of our delicious, quality produce and our great specials that you can enjoy every week.

There’s an exciting new deli with a greater range of local and international gourmet cheeses and delicious fresh cooked chickens. The seafood section now brings you live mussels – nothing comes fresher than that!
Thanks again for your patience during the renovations, and don’t forget to visit to take advantage of your 50% extra Qantas Frequent Flyer points offer!

We look forward to seeing you in-store soon,

Kris
Store Manager
Woolworths Caringbah

So game on for us to comment!

Looking through the obvious refurb mayhem, this store does not have the theatre or the market feel in the Fresh depts of the new Coles stores, it is certainly not a generation or two ahead.

They have moved and centralised Cheese and Smallgoods from the Dairy to the front of the Deli area, Proprietary Bread will obviously join in store Bakery at the entrance when it opens and they have used new fixtures, signage and educational prompts in Produce.

Plus fine tuning/ new locations/ new fixtures for Seafood (live mussels) and Hot Chickens, one small demonstration cooking table and another small table at the front with assorted fruit for sale at 0.50c a piece targeting kids.

Meat is in the back left hand corner and is yet to be finished by the look of it. Macro is present with an organics Produce range – they had 21 SKU’s when I was there.

The Produce black boxes are also absent, with stock now being hand packed onto the new style of fixtures that are quite small compared to the usual Woolies store and to the new Coles offer. The Produce wall on the right as you enter looks great, plenty of colour and the housekeeping was excellent, as you would expect with all of the staff walking around, they needed something to do!

The Deli, Seafood and Poultry cases were in one straight line, with some excellent graphics on the walls behind the Depts.

But again, most of what was there had been done already and it is felt that with the changes they had lost that bulky, chunky market feel in Produce which is the most important Dept for Shopper impact and perception. Deli/ Seafood and Poultry depts. were quiet clinical in the feel and visual personality.

But at least they had some cross merchandising using small Woolies branded wooden barrels, unlike Coles that still don’t use them to add some Grocery colour to the Fresh departments and target the impulse sale / increase transaction value.

The above may change when it all comes together in July and the whole store is complete – I look forward to returning for another visit, I may be mistaken, but on first glance this offer is very good, but not ‘step change great’.

SPAR ALEXANDRIA

Spar stores aren’t new to Queenslanders, but until recently there haven’t been many in the Sydney and Melbourne metro areas. The Alexandria store opened a couple of months ago in Sydney so we thought we’d take a look.

What it is and where it is:
* A small footprint supermarket, effectively a mini mart. More supermarket than convenience store though. Reminiscent of Tesco Fresh & Easy or WalMart Neighbourhood Markets in the US
* Elements of Thomas Dux/Harris Farm, with a small supermarket dry grocery offer
* Alexandria is a suburb full of high disposable income SINKs and DINKs living in medium density, brand new apartment blocks. The Spar store is only a couple of blocks from Danks St, which has the well known Danks St Depot cafe deli and a Whole House Foods organic supermarket. There isn’t a Coles or WW in the immediate vicinity.

First impressions:
* Fresh fruit and veg external signage and decaling similar to the FoodWorks Ryde store reviewed last issue.
* This Spar had an outdoors-facing cafe utilising the kitchen from the Deli department inside the store. Deli service was one side of the kitchen, facing into the store, and the cafe was on the other side of the kitchen, facing out
* I was greeted entering the store by a Movenpick (premium ice cream) demonstration and tasting person, setting the tone for a higher end product store.

Instore:
* Low profile bread racking and fresh fruit and veg tables. Small selection of fruit & veg but some interesting packs of nuts
* Large deli as a % of the store print, AND they had white anchovies (which are my yardstick for deli range), however the quality of the anchovies was poor as they were very hard and not fresh
* Whole chiller bay right next to the deli of duck cuts and duck ready meals, first time we’ve seen a bay of duck products. This one was all LuvADuck brand, looked like an initiative by them
* Range instore generally smaller pack formats (catering to the locals living in small apartments), high end ready meals and a lot of premium icecream brands
* Not many overtly ticketed price specials
* No real gondola ends, only a couple on two aisle ends near the checkout.

Checking out:
* Low profile gum & confectionery ‘aisle’ near the checkouts rather than at checkout
* Checkouts were messy but service was friendly

Verdict:
They know their local market well and have focussed on top up and dinner tonight shopping trips with their deli and ready meals emphasis.

WW Parramatta

We were led to believe whilst Caringbah is the ‘next generation’ WW store refurb, that the Parramatta store (located in the Westfield) is the WW version of Coles’ Oakleigh store. Ie, the ‘trial magnet’, where lots of different things are tested. So we scuttled off to have a look.

Wasn’t as much happening there as was expecting … but boy does that store get a shedload of traffic.
Health and Beauty was very obviously a focus, with two full-height aisles separated by a low profile walk-around aisle to total 3 aisles. It had very large overhead department signage in colours and font reminiscent of Big W.

The health aisle has been extended to include a low profile sports nutrition aisle.
Bread was ranged in its plastic trays (rather than on wire racking). Looked like the bread equivalent of shelf ready trays, but it was a bit ugly. As were the HUGE thick grey plastic trolleys, very obviously heavy duty but I’m not sure to what end.

Things that differed from the usual run of the mill WW store included more shelf media (but less floor media) than we’re used to seeing, used for information and recipes etc.  Also more brand blocking (particularly in dairy case).

Two apparent trials included various headers in the fruit & veg, confectionery and health/beauty aisles; and some educational aisle blades in the Coffee aisle which talked about the various types of coffee.

So a few minor tweaks, rather than anything revolutionary. And they need to lose the ugly grey trolleys that make aisles impassable!

And then there’s …

The Village Grocer, Balgowlah: situated 3 doors from a refurbished Coles in the Stockland centre, this store was like a Harris Farm or Thomas Dux store with a ramped up fresh meal and deli area as well as a broad range of imported dry grocery products ranging from cordials to chilli sauces. Great selection of dips with some interesting brands and products we haven’t found elsewhere.
Novelty brandy packaging in Dan Murphys: What is going on in the brandy category? Unclear whether these are specific to Dan’s, but they’re carrying Stiletto brandy (high heel shoe shaped bottle); Venus (bottle shaped like guess who); Bouzouki (packaging shaped like a type of  mandolin/banjo), and another shaped like a cello or double bass stringed instrument. Last ditch attempt to grow a struggling category by promoting the ‘high end’ with novelty products?

The Shopper Marketing survey interviews we’ve been conducting during April are consistently identifying two key instore marketing areas of opportunity: occasion based solutions and instore theatre.

The major Australian grocery retailers’ relentless focus on clean store policies, particularly in centre store, is all well and good from an ease of shopping point of view. But an easy shopping experience isn’t necessarily a fun, exciting or enjoyable one.

Occasion based solutions and instore theatre provide a sense of delight and discovery that not only increase basket size but generate store and retailer loyalty by providing a genuine point of difference.

Following are some examples from overseas markets to demonstrate what can be done, with a few Australian iterations thrown in for good measure.

THEATRE STARTS OUTSIDE THE STORE

Westfield’s global retail tours highlight the creativity employed to draw traffic to store. The giant Louis Vuitton suitcase enveloping the Louis Vuitton store in New York comes to mind.

Figure 1. Just Sports exterior, Dallas, Texas

Figure 2. Whole Foods market, Los Angeles. Flowers and plants out front signify ‘Fresh’.

Outdoor chains in the USA such as Outdoor World, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabelas (the US versions of BCF – Boating Camping Fishing, except that they include large hunting departments) start the theatre outside the store with hunting trophies and stuffed animals. At centre store are huge dioramas of stuffed wildlife – deer, bears, mountain lions etc – as well as aquariums with live fish. These dioramas serve as points of navigation, dividing departments.

The stuffed animals ironically continue to ‘bring products to life’ at shelf.

Figure 3. Stuffed animals ‘enliven’ hiking boots in Bass Pro Shop, Nashville, Tennessee.

THE THEATRE OF FOOD – INSTORE FOOD PREPARATION

Mainstream and premium grocers in the USA ranging from HEB to Whole Foods to Bristol Farms increase their food sales margins by preparing food instore in front of shoppers.
At Whole Foods, for example, you can order your salmon cooked to specification.  At Bristol Farms you can sit in the coffee shop located in the centre of the store. Foodland Adelaide’s Finest at Fairview Park is doing a version of this with its instore cafe and takeaway coffee.

Some grocery retailers such as HEB have a chef’s corner (eg HEB’s Cooking Connection) where they not only prepare recipes of the day and display ingredients and complementary products, but also provide advice, effectively acting as an instore salesperson.

Figure 4. Cooking Connection in HEB, Fredericksburg, Texas

Feels like this is a natural extension of the Feed the Family and Curtis Stone programs in Coles, if they chose to go there.  Other Australian examples include SupaBarn in Canberra City, where they bake the bread in front of you (impulse sales based on the fresh bread smell alone!) and again Foodland Adelaide’s Finest, who have a chef’s corner.

THEATRE IN AISLE

Providing theatre in aisle and at shelf increases basket incidence of multiple categories by attracting top up shoppers who may otherwise only shop 1 category per aisle or second aisle. Australian examples of using fixturisation to increase category incidence include the much-cited and award winning Cafe At Home project from a few years ago. Below is an example of how Whole Foods approach the coffee ‘fixture.

Figure 5. Coffee ‘fixture’, Whole Foods, Los Angeles.

Figure 6. Craft beer tap handles in Old Chicago brewpub, Denver, Colorado

In US brewpubs (chain and independent pubs ranging many specialty and craft beers) the beer taps are centre stage, with the tap handles the engine room of discovery.

OCCASION BASED SOLUTIONS: SECONDARY DISPLAYS

One of the retail issues in the Australian market is that retailers are selling products, rather than solutions. Bunnings is a classic example, where by attempting to maintain a ‘warehouse feel’ they are missing the ‘this goes with that’ solution nature of the hardware category. Sure they have floor stacks in aisles, such as hammers where the nails are, but true solution based displays, eg ‘I’m building a deck, what are all the things I need?’, are thin on the ground.

Occasion based solutions, such as all breakfast elements (milk, bread, spreads, cereal etc) being placed together can drive AWOP as they increase the number of items in the basket.

However, for logistical, political and buying structure reasons, retailers aren’t going to just up and relocate a number of categories’ primary locations to group them together.

But shopper focussed solutions such as dinner tonight, lunch on the go, and entertaining can still be catered to with secondary and offlocation displays. (A nod here to Coles, where some of their renewal stores include a Food To Go chiller case). In the UK, pharmacy chains such as Boots and Superdrug offer food-to-go solutions in front-of-store chillers.

Figure 7. Food To Go area at Coles St Agnes, Adelaide SA

Figure 8. Takeaway Soup & Sandwich display, Whole Foods, California

This is the model being pursued in the USA, where smaller grocery and mass merchant suppliers who wouldn’t normally get an offlocation display look-in are banding together with complementary larger players to achieve impactful solution based displays.

Traditionally behind Australia in offpremise liquor execution, the USA is starting to catch up with a couple of ‘big box’ liquor chains gaining scale. Both Total Wine and Bevmo understand liquor consumption occasions. Aside from substantial gifting offers including boxes, bags, cards, glassware, wine openers etc in dedicated areas instore, they also play to entertaining occasions by ranging specialty cheese and gourmet crackers.

Figure 9. Cheese and Crackers unit in Bevmo, Arizona, USA. All that’s missing is the soft drink and mineral water.

So there are a few examples. Now that the basic ‘hygiene’ elements are in place, it’s time for Australian retailers to pick up their game.

We’ll discuss the role of interactivity and instore education in subsequent articles.

SHOPPER MARKETING SURVEY – HAVE YOUR SAY BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT

POPAI and ShopAbility are currently running the first industry benchmark study into the status of the Shopper Marketing, Category Management and POP functions in Australia.
Interviews have been conducted and now is your opportunity to have your say in the online survey, closes June 2. Participation is free, and study participants will receive a summary of the findings. To participate go to  http://www.ys3.net.au/surveys/5/y100514register.asp

All participants receive a FREE summary of the findings in July. The survey is now running and closes on June 2. Click the link below to participate FREE in the online survey, which will take approx 30 mins to complete. http://www.ys3.net.au/surveys/5/y100514register.asp .

Forward to a friend in the industry! If you think someone else involved in, or with views of the shopper marketing and category functions, would be interested in participating (and receiving the findings), please send them this link -http://www.ys3.net.au/surveys/5/y100514register.asp .
The more the merrier for a robust sample and holistic view.

Thank you for your participation, we look forward to presenting you with the results!
. Details about the study below.

The POPAI & ShopAbility Shopper Marketing & Category Management Industry Study  will help provide FMCG and retail sectors with a comprehensive overview of how to optimise both their internal and in-store shopper marketing and category management opportunities.
The Global Association for Marketing at Retail, POPAI Australia and New Zealand and shopper research and strategy firm, ShopAbility, have combined forces to put together a new study to help industry professionals enhance the shopping experience in-store, improve in-store areas of influence and ultimately help boost sales.
The study has come about after reviews of related studies overseas. It will be conducted over April and May and will combine in-depth face-to-face and telephone interviews with an online opinion survey.
“We are excited to be involved in the first industry wide study in this area in Australia,” said POPAI Australia and New Zealand General Manager, Karen Spear.

“We have previously conducted studies on the point of purchase industry but with this study, the scope is significantly expanded to take a more holistic view of the various functions involved in Marketing at Retail,” she said.

Co-Director of ShopAbility, Norrelle Goldring, said the results of the survey will help deliver the information they need to map out an activity and resources path for retailers and manufacturers.

“The study will help us to evaluate how Australian shopper marketing and category management related functions compare with overseas markets, identify common issues and opportunities and outline key steps for industry participants to take to make the most of their capabilities,” she said.

Individuals responsible for creating or running shopper marketing, category management and trade marketing/point of purchase disciplines or those who have frequent dealings with these functions including sales directors, marketing directors, (group) category managers/development directors, insights and innovations professionals, trade marketing managers, customer/channel marketing or development directors are strongly urged to take part in this survey.

To participate in this Australian-first survey, please go to this link:

http://www.ys3.net.au/surveys/5/y100514register.asp .

Results will be available early in the new financial year. Survey participants will receive a free summary of the results of the shopper marketing and category management findings of the survey.

For further information contact:

Norrelle Goldring, Director
ShopAbility
M: 0411 735 190
E: norrelle@shop-ability.com.au
W: shop-ability.com.au

Karen Spear, General Manager

POPAI Australia & New Zealand
M: 0412 668 579

E: karens@popai.com.au

W: popai.com.au

About POPAI Australia and New Zealand:

POPAI (Point of Purchase Advertising Institute) is the only global, not-for-profit association exclusively dedicated to the retail marketing industry. It has a global network of 20 offices covering 45 countries dedicated to serving in excess of 1,700 member companies.

In Australia, POPAI’s mission is to advance the evolution of Marketing at Retail as a strategic and tactical advertising medium and an integral part of the marketing mix.

This includes promoting the importance of Marketing at Retail in the total marketing mix; improving levels of education in the industry; developing and encouraging improved standards of practice; representing industry views; promoting a better understanding of POP mediums; provide opportunities to exchange ideas and experiences; and to conduct research for more effective strategy.

Call POPAI on (02) 9984 9322, look us up at www.popai.com.au or email marketing@popai.com.au

About ShopAbility:

ShopAbility is a specialist FMCG & retail consultancy spanning multiple channels. We help clients improve both their thinking and doing capabilities to improve instore execution for increased sales results. We help clients understand shoppers, retailers and store; we develop standout strategies for market advantage; and we build clients’ capability to deliver them.  Our retail and go-to-market strategies are holistic, differentiated and shopper-driven. Our offers span insight/research, strategy, execution, capability and training. Call us on 1300 88 56 44 for more information, look us up at www.shop-ability.com.au or drop us an email to enquiries@shop-ability.com.au

In discussing promotion in last month’s issue we talked about ‘making the punishment fit the crime’ – that is, matching the promotion mechanics to the objectives you’re trying to achieve.

Here we’re going to discuss in more detail how you can best support a promotion based on its scale, objectives and mechanics.

DETERMINE HOW MUCH TO SPEND BEFORE YOU START

What’s the promotion worth to you – what sort of Return on Investment (ROI) are you looking for?
Based on your promotion objectives, is the promotion expected to increase sales or is it a ‘cost of doing business’ based on a broader strategic objective?
This determines how much you should spend.
If your objective is to increase sales of product/brand/category X by Y% over Z timeframe, you need to figure out how many incremental dollars (revenue and gross profit) that’s worth to you.
You can then decide for every extra dollar you make on the promotion, what portion you want to spend on supporting it.
It’s a bit like sponsorship … in successful sponsorships, for every dollar spent on sponsorship naming rights, generally a further $2 or more is spent on support.
Determining your budget comes back to the scope you have set for the promotion – how many products/brands/categories it is running across and how long will it run for.
Shouting works better than whispering in retail environments – if they don’t know about it, they won’t buy it, so you need to have enough budget to shout a bit. Spend too little on support and you’re dooming your promotion to failure. Spend too much, even if on the right things, and you may get great retail KPI results on traffic, frequency etc but lose money in the process.

TYPES OF PROMOTIONAL SUPPORT

Traditionally, retail promotions are supported by one or more of the following depending on their scale/scope:

* Advertising: radio, TV, print media, online, digital eg SMS, email, social media eg Facebook and Twitter
* Point of sale: shelf ticketing, posters, header cards, counter cards etc
* Catalogues
* Displays: in-aisle, co-located with another category, gondola/aisle end displays/standees and ‘spectactulars’, additional offlocation displays (often in standees or ‘dump bins’); impulse displays at counters
* Sales staff incentives
* Mechanic oriented POS: eg scratch cards, loyalty cards

Or you might come up with something else or some additional types.

Generally, better results are achieved when support mechanisms are combined rather than expecting all of one support type to do the work.

Advertising and broad based out-of-store activities are generally designed to drive traffic to the store. Some retail objectives can be executed very successfully using instore execution only, without any out-of-store activities.

The trick here is to figure out the right balance based on a) your budget/ROI, b) your objectives, and c) scale/logistical capability based on how many stores it’s going to be in. The store and your customer database should always be your starting point (better to be instore with no outside advertising than to have out of store advertising but no instore execution).  The size of the available budget and the potency of the offer will dictate how much instore vs out of store activity you do.

An example of this might look like the below (this is indicative, not exhaustive).

Figure 1: Determining support types for your promotion.  © ShopAbility 2010.

EXECUTING YOUR PROMOTION

As alluded to above, certain parts of the store should be executed irrespective of promotion.  A suggested model might look a bit like this, where the target’s ‘bullseye’ is where you start:

Included in ‘other areas of store’ are Dispensary Counter, Checkout Counters, co-locating the product in another category aisle, front window displays, front of store sale tables/dump bins, staff & incentives.  The importance you place on each of these will depend on the product/category type and the promotion mechanic. Eg if it’s a mechanic and a product that’s suitable for impulse you might put in on the checkouts and in front of store dump bins.

The areas of the store in which you execute the promotion also tie into the RSVP3 point of purchase drivers:
Range:            What products are you promoting, and with what other products?
Space & Layout:     Do you need to change the space or layout of the category you are promoting in order to ‘face up’ the promoted product? Do you need to put the promoted product next to something else instore also (related category)?
Visibility & Display:     How many points of visibility will you execute around the store? How many displays will you have (see ‘Other Areas of Store’, above). Note that ‘stock sells stock’ in a lot of instances. The more stock you have, the more noticeable the display/promotion is, and the bigger the brand looks. (However you don’t want to order so much stock in you’ll never move it all … you can be smart here by putting empty boxes on display). Stockweight on a display should at least equal the amount of POS (header cards, posters) on any one display. Displays shouldn’t be POS heavy or obscure the stock.
Persuasion:    What’s the role of staff upsell, companion sell or incentives in persuading customers to take up the offer?

GETTING THE MESSAGE RIGHT

As a general rule, point of sale for promotions should read, from top to bottom in order:
1. Incentive/offer/prize
2. What the promoted product is (specifying pack sizes, if applicable)
3. How (mechanic).

It needs to be kept as simple as possible, an example is below.

There needs to be a clear call to action, retail oriented (not the above-the-line advertising slapped on a poster) AND it needs to survive the ‘3 second walk past test’.  Ie because the POS is going to be in environments where shoppers are moving, you need to be able to walk past it yourself and digest the message in under 3 seconds. So keep words to a minimum. (All the promotion terms and conditions can go in very small at the bottom of the poster).

Message Hierarchies using the ‘Path to Purchase’

In principle, the closer a shopper gets to the product, the more detail should be available. (Or the further away they are from the product, the simpler the message needs to be).

This means that while the message remains consistent, the level of detail on the POS changes according to where in the store they are.
The level of detail also changes according to the size of the POS. It’s no good trying to fit War & Peace on a shelf ticket, or lots of small font detail in a window poster people walk past. For example:

Externals/Windows:             WIN + prize + product shot (no mechanics, just ‘see instore’)
Display signs, pallet headers, posters:    WIN + prize + product shot + mechanic (T&Cs down bottom in small print)
Wobblers at shelf:            WIN + prize + product shot (mechanics on back).

And as a final thought, you might be able to tie the promotion into an overarching retail occasion (Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Christmas) or a consumer occasion such as Back To School.

So that’s Promotion support.  Next time we’ll take a look at the role of store staff persuasion and how different selling techniques can achieve different things.

Till then!

We welcome feedback on these articles – what you agree with, what you don’t – and what you’d like to hear about. Email us with feedback on enquiries@shop-ability.com.au

Kmart Keysborough

From the outside this store does not look any different from most other Kmart stores, but scratch below the surface and there are some neat initiatives being trialled:
1. smaller ranges in most Depts
2. more space for remaining SKU’s and ranges
3. clutter removed from the aisles
4. welcoming staff – what a difference!
5. clearer price ticketing with rounded $ price points
6. better housekeeping

No wonder the Customers and Sakes are returning, they’ve gone back to basics with an offer that the average Shopper can understand and relate to.

Coles Flemington

Another of the Refreshed stores, although when we visited in February, the center was not yet completed with vacant stores and builders still walking around.
But the Coles store was ready – and how!
This store is a continued evolution of the new Refreshed stores that are popping up in most states. The store standard was superb for 9am, with plenty of staff wlking around fine tuning the presentation and answering questions and generally being attentive.
It feels like this store is under trading considerably, and will need to bed in with the local shoppers before it’s real potential can be reached.

Coles Oakleigh

This store is a trial store, similar to Donvale, and has many of the attributes of other Refreshed stores – but there is more!

Oakleigh is well worth a visit as there are many initiatives here that have not appeared at other stores as yet or are part of the regular roll out, yet they combine well to make a store that is definitely different and definitely progress on most of the others:

1. the Cooking Shop with black and grey headers and fixtures and has all of the home cooking needs well displayed and categorised

2. “Toblerone” signs in the Fresh depts. and on the gondola ends, a triangular shape that can be seen from all sides

3. food to go area with cold drinks, sandwiches and sushi located on a front gondola end
4. mid aisle “special” bays

5. Recipes on shelves in Grocery

6. separate weight loss/ control section that has been separated from the normal Health Foods offer. It also stocks a range of well known Protein supplements.
7. better sub-categorisation in Depts such as Pet Food and Health and Beauty
8. Branded supplier stands in Health and Beauty

9. shelf ready trolleys for high volume products
10. dedicated freezer doors and chiller sections for Specials
11. Market Fresh price tickets in the Fresh Depts – we did not like these as they do not drive a Price message at all. If you train your Shoppers to look for and respond to price driven Specials why hide then with different terminology. It appears hypocritical….
12. Seasonal events in an aisle not lost on a back wall or in a corner

The down side is that it makes the Depts such as Paper or Household Cleaning look positively boring  and they must be an opportunity for an astute and enterprising supplier to work with Coles to drive the Shopping experience to a new level.

No matter how much you like or dislike the proliferation of PL, it is here to stay. Apparenlty the PL mix in Coles is at 22.5% well on the way to their target of 30% of sales. By looking at some of the new packaging Coles are introducing they have already upped the ante with innovative edesigns and superb graphics – hello Marketing Depts!!

However I do not like the treatment of Confectionery – it is a retrograde step – harder to shop due to haphazard sub category adjacencies and flows, using Perspex dump bins for hang sell bags (please!!)and poor housekeeping. Certainly not in keeping with the rest of the store.

Coles continue to impress with the roll out of these stores and their trial programs. None of it is neck snapping rocket science, most initiatives have been done before either here or overseas, and copied inot these refreshed stores.

The difference is that we have come to accept bland supermarket offers as the norm, and any change is seen as a good change.

This store hopefully proves that these types of initiatives will eventually be developed and rolled out across the whole store and will be permanent, we’ve been holding oru breath long enough!

PS – let’s see what Woolies response is when they complete the Caringbah refurb later this year. Coles have left WW behind with their Refresh program and it will be interesting to see if and how they react with something other than just Price. – Peter Huskins

FoodWorks Infresh, West Ryde

This small footprint store was opened a month or so ago and its mission is ‘we help turn food into meals’. This message appears on posters, overhead signage and aisle ends throughout the store.  There’s a lot of large imagery of fresh food both externally and internally in an effort to reinforce the ‘infresh’ offer.

What we liked:
* Light, bright look and feel, low profile fresh fruit and veg section lends market feel and improves visibility, wide aisles made it easy to move around
* A good range of Asian meals and meal components (potentially due to the store’s proximity to Eastwood, a large Korean community) including pastes and dried fish
* Fresh made salads and pastas in the delicatessen available in a range of take-home size tubs, although the delicatessen itself was small and lacked a decent antipasto range
* In aisle signage delineating categories and categories segments was very clear. There wasn’t much aisle end navigation signage as there were really on 3 or 4 split centre store aisles
* In-store liquor section with a basic range of wines (in-store liquor offer in grocery is unusual in NSW due to licensing regulations).

What needs work:
* Delicatessen selection was largely what you’d see in a mainstream supermarket, only less of it
* Fresh-to-go sandwich and drink cabinet inside the front door – I assume this was meant to be a bit like the Munch offer in 7Eleven – was out of stocks and lacked signage, looked like it was to be decommissioned
* Quite a small range of fresh fruit and veg – doesn’t deliver on the ‘InFresh’ proposition and signage
* No ready meals or pre-prepared meals in the meat chillers, given the ‘we turn food into meals’ proposition
* Very small bread selection. All bread, crumpets, muffins chucked together in a single display bin
* Jury is out on the raw pallet offlocation displays of washing powder and other items … bargain basement feel.

Verdict:
Covered most of the basics. I’d go for the Asian meals, but there’s not a wide enough range for stock up shops and it’s not delicatessen enough for dinner tonight/entertaining shopping trips, particularly given the store’s proximity to Top Ryde City which even in its current incomplete renovated state has a WW, Aldi, Franklins, delicatessen and a dedicated Asian supermarket.
I’d use it a bit like an IGA … duck down the road to pick up some basic things you’ve run out of when you can’t be bothered dealing with shopping centre carparks and crowds.

Franklins, Top Ryde City

Given David Burton’s preview of the Franklin’s Top Ryde City store in Retail World recently I was expecting something a bit special. Sadly this was not the case. It’s quite similar to the Franklins St Ives Peter reviewed mid last year.
Entry is confusing as it’s way over on the left, with an open space on the right that I entered and was promptly told I’d come in through the express checkouts.
Their loyalty program signs are everywhere, and the checkout person asked the customers prior to me and asked me as well, whether we were members of their loyalty program or wanted to be. The customers ahead of me were signed up on the spot. The Franklins staff obviously got the memo about the loyalty program.
Cut case offlocation displays in aisles were the right idea to attract impulse purchase but the execution let them down … offlocation breakfast cereals in breakfast only prompt switch rather than incremental purchase, and unrelated displays in some aisles had obviously not been shopped. Better to put an offlocation display in a complementary category (eg savoury crackers next to cheese barges etc).
The low-profile bread area is quite small and actually makes the range look smaller, particularly given it was only one side of the aisle (international meals were on the other). The POS itself is quite dated looking.
On the bright side, there’s an entire aisle of gluten free products next to fruit and veg.

Verdict:
We’re still in the ‘80s.

And then there’s … Golden Banana

This was a bit of a pleasant surprise. Located in Top Ryde City shopping centre it looks like a standard fruit & veg shop from the front (it bills itself as a ‘fruit market’) but is actually more like a Harris Farm Market in both range and store footprint.
Huge range of fresh fruit and veg … an entire wall of Asian-style greens, and lots of fruits you don’t see very often like Kiwanos.
Chillers contained premium dips, yoghurts, cheeses, ice creams, and pasta brands. A dry store of several aisles contained the (by now ubiquitous, and apparently compulsory for this suburb) Asian meal components plus a large selection of fresh pastas.
A large delicatessen serviced antipasto and sliced meat needs, and there’s a separate pasta and salad bar at the front of the store for quick takeaway lunch trade.
At this stage Golden Banana looks like a one-off (I couldn’t find any online references to them as a chain) but it’s certainly a concept that could be franchised. Aside from Harris Farm its closest cousin would be something like the Colonial Fresh Markets in Westfield Doncaster.

Verdict:
This is a destination store for fresh fruit & veg but competes with the delicatessens for the gourmet dollar too … lots of interesting stuff to try. It would be even better if they had some recipe cards so you knew what to DO with some of the more obscure products. – Norrelle Goldring

What’s your occasion?

There is a lot of confusion about the role of the occasion in retail in Australia. We tend to stay safe and stick to category type displays without actively marketing in-store to specific occasions such as dinner tonight and lunch on-the-go, for example. We’ve been on to the gifting occasion for a while with Xmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day, but gifting seems to be the only occasion that retailers seem to universally feel comfortable shouting out about.

Well,  not so in the UK. In-store marketing based on occasion is alive and well in UK Grocery and Pharmacy channels – and there’s a lot we can learn.

Take a look at this.

It’s the Marks & Spencer ‘dine in for 2 for a tenner’ campaign.  You’ve never seen occasion-based messaging quite so blatant or quite so well done as this. Here’s the deal: select an eligible main, a side, a dessert and a bottle of wine all for 10 pounds. A brilliant strategy in an economic downturn, with things still looking pretty dire overall in the Mother Country.

About half of the food section of the M&S store is dedicated to this promotion. Gondola ends contain signage (as per the image) and selections of each item ready to grab and go. An entire three aisles were dedicated to the eligible mains, sides and desserts – a huge range of ready to eat meals, all clearly labelled in terms of their quality, nutritional value and even sustainability credentials (e.g. ‘this salad nicoise is made from sustainable fish stocks’).

The promotion is signed clearly outside the front of the store, at entrance, overhead, on gondola ends and aisles and even blank walls.  And the shoppers LOVE IT.  A real buzz in-store, conversations among friends in the queues, and unsolicited praise about it from friends of mine living in the UK… this is occasion-based shopper marketing that is bang on the money.

Here’s another example: Boots pharmacies located in high-traffic urban areas are offering lunch-on-the-run deals for under 3 pounds 50 including a drink. Brilliant. People often stop in to the Boots for drugs or emergency items like stockings… now they can grab their lunch as well. In fact, I think Boots urban locations are becoming destination lunch-on-the-run stores and their rest of store offer is adding incremental sales to the lunch purchase. A terrific traffic driver.

Superdrug are doing a similar thing: sandwich, snack and drink lunch deals:

Meanwhile, another fabulous example of occasion-based messaging in the BHS department store in Bath. ‘ Beach-ready body for £30′ in the swimwear department. All the push-you-out-and-suck-you-in bathing suits all displayed together in one area for a fixed price. And even more brilliantly, BHS is literally right across the road from the new spa complex and the swimwear is positioned just inside the entry doors to capture all the impulse purchases from disorganised travellers who didn’t book their spa package in advance… like me!

Sainsbury’s, as ever, have all the occasions covered. On your way to a friend’s for dinner or off out on a date? Flowers and chocolates displayed together right at the front of the store with good price points and a service counter located nearby.

Sainsbury’s range of ready-to-eat meal solutions for the dinner tonight occasion also takes some beating! The English sure know how to do ready-to-eat. Gourmet salads, Moroccan, Indian, Thai – you name the cuisine, they’ve probably got it. Leaves our Australian range of overpriced fresh soups and gluggy instant pastas for dead. And the dinner tonight options are together in clear displays easily accessible without shopping the rest of the store.

Yep, the UK are leading the way in occasion-based shopper marketing in store. On the downside, some of these stores are undoing all their good work by only having 1 or 2 serviced checkouts and pushing everyone else through self service checkouts which they quite obviously and loudly hated (and were slow). But, that aside, there is a lot we can look at by way of leveraging occasions in Australian retail.

In Summary:

• What are the relevant shopper occasions for your category? Map your category to your shopper occasion to your channel. Some occasions will belong in one store type and not in another – you may need to change your occasion-based marketing based on channel type.
• What other categories are likely to be shopped by the same shopper for the same occasion and how can they be displayed and promoted together? Are there oppportunities for cross-supplier promotion based on occasion?
• Where in the store are shoppers likely to go to find what they need for the particular occasion? Is your display in the right place?
• Is there a clear value proposition and price point based on the occasion? Marks & Spencer ‘Dine in for 2 for £10′ is a great example of this.
• Is the occasion communicated multiple times on the shopper path to purchase and signposted clearly in terms of where to find it in store?
• Have you thought about the other occasions shoppers visit a particular store type for at what time of day, and how you might leverage the occasion opportunity? Examples are fuel before and after work and the snack / gut fill on the run opportunity, and the Boots-style lunch deals in inner city pharmacies when shoppers come in for emergency items.
• Is there a place for localised occasion-based marketing? A perfect example is the department store opposite the spa centre heavily promoting swimwear.  There may be localised opportunities in particular stores you distribute in.

So… just in time for Xmas… keep your eye out for the best occasion-based marketing of the season! How can you apply these principles to your product or retail offer? Time to think outside just the gift box.

Our website and emails will change to www.shop-ability.com.au, which will be live by 10 December.

Don’t worry – all your emails will still reach us and you’ll be able to find the new website via the old one.

Time to increase the ShopAbility of your category, product portfolio and retail offer!