Every brand wants to dominate the shop floor, but achieving this level of efficiency isn’t always an easy task.
It takes research, time, testing, and strategy to make any kind of impact in a retail setting, so finding the support you need is essential.
With a retail merchandising partner, you’ll get exactly this.
You’ll receive support, guidance, and strategy that helps you to maximise your performance and your return on investment, tailored to your specific needs and challenges as a brand.
What more could you ask for?
If you’re ready to take the next step towards retail domination, it’s time to get in touch with our expert Territory Sales Managers.
In a quick call with our team, we’ll get to know you and your brand holistically, gaining an understanding of your audience, your products, and the challenges that you’re facing.
Once we’re familiar with you, we can start to take a look at the opportunities for optimisation – every brand has unique obstacles to overcome, so it’s important that we’re developing an ongoing retail merchandising strategy for you, nobody else.
What is merchandising in retail?
Merchandising in retail is the way that products and brands are presented to an audience.
Across a range of retailers, you’ll find an array of different ways that products are advertised to consumers. From eye-catching retail displays to impeccable shelf placement, there’s far more than meets the eye and there’s a huge amount of detail and planning that goes into every aspect of what you see on the shop floor.
So, what’s the key?
In short, it’s all down to retail marketing activity.
Territory Sales Managers are experts in creating processes and guidelines that elevate the impact of your brand and products.
Our Territory Sales Managers are well versed in the different ways that brands make their products available to consumers – it’s the strategy and the execution, covering the entirety of the process from end to end.
To ensure that we’ve created a strategy that’s right for you, we’ll ensure that we’ve considered
- Product selection
- Product placement
- Display design and construction
- Any other techniques that are utilised to increase visibility and interaction
A successful retail merchandising strategy will also be based on the following principles, all of which play a key role in creating, implementing, and carrying out the desired merchandising activity:
- Planning
- Implementation
- Management
- Analysis
By engaging in these activities, we can be sure that we’re keeping a close eye on the strategy that we’ve implemented. By analysing the results that this achieves, we’ll then be able to refine and adapt your in-store activity to further enhance your ROI.
We’re constantly adapting our strategy so that you’re always leading the pack, never falling behind.
Retail merchandising strategy, made simple
Every partnership works most effectively when every party can play to their strengths.
You’d want a chef cooking your food, you’d want a pilot flying your plane, and you want a retail merchandiser creating your in-store retail strategy.
It’s as simple as that.
By bringing our team in to assist, you’re investing in expert methods and strategies that free up your time and allow you to focus on what you’re best at; developing products that consumers love.
It’s our field of expertise, so just leave it with us and we’ll create something magical.
But how do we do it?
Retail marketing is a broad field, covering lots of different touchpoints in the consumer.
Some of these are pretty straightforward, such as FSDUs and other physical marketing displays. In contrast, others are more intricate, such as the positioning of the brand so that it aligns with the views, beliefs, and desires of the consumer.
As we said, there’s way more thought going into marketing than meets the eye.
Here at Tactical Solutions, our stance is that detail and analysis achieve results, which is why we’ll use a data-driven approach to achieve the best possible results for your brand.
We don’t just work on pot luck, we use tested approaches and expert insights, as well as our unique data, to inform your strategy in a way that’s designed to beat out the competition and drive sales for your products through meaningful engagement at various touchpoints in a retail setting.
Our goal is to get your brand seen, felt, and purchased and we’ll take every step we can to make that happen.
Gathering information with a retail store audit
For us, the process starts with a retail store audit.
Before we can start to change up your strategy, we need to assess where you’re currently at – from the areas where you’re struggling to the spaces where you’re nailing it, every piece of information is incredibly valuable.
Once our audit is complete, we’ll have a clear idea of why things might not be working as you’d like.
We’ll use strategic thinking and years of merchandising knowledge to identify strengths and weaknesses, then present you with our suggested plan of action to rectify these issues and bring your brand into the limelight.
Our retail audits are conducted in-store and in-person – whilst image recognition technology can assist us in creating your strategy, there’s no substitute for the personal touch that our Territory Sales Managers bring into the mix.
Whilst in-store, we’ll also be able to identify opportunities to take advantage of visual merchandising tactics, which is a different category of retail marketing that can help to increase visibility and engagement for your products in key areas of the store.
So, what are we looking for during our retail store audits?
Generally, there are 5 key principles that we’ll be looking to assess. These are:
- Correct product placement
- Expiration dates of shelf stock
- Stock levels on shelves and back-room inventory
- Effective signage placement
- Efficient usage of floor space and shelf space
In assessing these factors, we’ll have a great idea of how you’re currently doing and where our biggest wins could be by altering strategy and ensuring our requested processes are followed by store employees.
Product resets that hit the ground running
New product launches are one of the busiest periods in any brand’s marketing plans – there’s so much to do and deadlines can approach in the blink of an eye, but the key focus is to ensure that everything is in place to allow your new product range to flourish when it hits the stores.
Of course, that’s easier said than done when you don’t have the retail merchandising know-how.
But when you’re working with Tactical Solutions’ expert team, it’s as easy as can be.
We know just how to action a product reset to get the most out of your new ranges. Whether you’re offering an upgrade on your existing offering, a brand new product, or you’re looking to trial products in a different niche, we’ll consider all the challenges and ensure that you’re presented in the best light.
Before any product reset strategy is implemented, we’ll take the time to talk to you about the range of products we’ll be looking to push. We need to understand what we’re advertising, the problems that this product solves, and the benefits that it holds over the products offered by the competition to effectively position the products.
Once all of this information is in our hands, we’ll go away and create our bespoke retail plans for your product reset – from visuals to stock plans and more, we’ll cover everything we need to ensure that you’re set up for success.
Dealing with product recalls effectively
It’s not always just about visibility, engagement, and sales.
Sometimes, you need to respond to changes in circumstances quickly.
Product recalls are a great example of this.
Product recalls are the process of collecting and replacing products that are flagged as defective or problematic – these need to be removed from stores rapidly to avoid any further issues arising.
No matter what the issue is, it’s vital to act in a timely manner.
If you’ve never dealt with a product recall situation before, don’t worry – the Tactical Solutions team is on hand to assist.
We have deep experience when it comes to helping brands to navigate these tough situations in a way that’s professional, productive, and protected.
With our team steadying the ship, you’re in the safest possible hands.
From the physical recall of products to the handling of sensitive briefings and narrative control, we’ll offer expert advice that helps your brand to come out of the other side of the event in a strong position.
Get in touch to get the ball rolling!
If you’re ready to take the next steps on the path to in-store efficiency, get in touch with the Tactical Solutions team today!
Our team of merchandising and field marketing professionals, known as our Territory Sales Managers, are on hand to ensure that you’ve got all the tools, manpower, and insight you need to analyse and improve your in-store operations, so don’t hesitate to contact us online or by phone.
For more information on our experience, our technology, and our unique way of working, click here!
