During this time of the year, weâre all thinking about our Summer Holidays, Wimbledon, ice lollies, and hopefully lots of sunshine. Yet in the world of retail, thereâs something else happening.
Retailers and Brands are starting to plan their Christmas, with some already revealing some of their product range for the Festive Season.
Planning key dates earlier will help maximise your sales, and within our blog we look at why we tell our Clients to start from at least July when it comes to Christmas. But it is also important in doing so, you’re aware of all the other key dates on the run in to Christmas to make sure you don’t miss out. Check out our Retail Calendar to find out how we can help you with other key dates from now until Christmas.
Planning early will allow you to be well prepared on all promotions, gaining discretionary extra display and making sure you have good stock availability. Whether youâve started your planning, or not, at Tactical we do recommend planning early and get the wheels in motion for the end of July.
At Tactical, we can help agree a structured plan to really drive and maximise sales over the festive period. Our team of retail experts are readily available to help deliver that plan, starting by holding a meeting with the client. This allows us to find out whatâs happening, what they are intending on selling and their main selling priorities for the Golden Quarter.
Following this we put together an action plan, broken down week by week to highlight exactly what will be implemented to maximise those sales and to ensure we deliver a strong ROI.
We asked our Head Office and Client Team for their Top Tips for Christmas Planning so that you can make sure your field sales plan is the best it can be.
- Ensure clarity on Clients Christmas objectives. What are you trying to achieve during the Golden Quarter? â Katie, Business Insights Team Manager
- Donât neglect any non-seasonal products â Richard, Business Unit Controller
- Building a Joint Business Plan early with a field sales agency is highly recommended. Increasing store visits at time of promotions will help you increase sales and build strong brand awareness at this key time of year â Kirsty, Client Manager
Both Brands and Retailers will be hoping for yet another bumper Christmas, after last yearâs sales amassed a whopping ÂŁ1billion more than the previous year! Kantar have reported that in the 12 weeks prior to 31st December 2017, the average household spent ÂŁ1,054 on groceries over the three months including the Christmas period.
âItâs no surprise to hear stories of shoppers trading up on products during the golden quarter, at a time of year when we have more visitors to our houses than normal. Who doesnât want to show off a premium brand opposed to a retailerâs own label? Our field teams are in store all year round building relationships in store, so when the time comes to deliver and go that extra mile, ensuring shoppers are spending on your brand, we have the contacts and relationships in store to do soâ – Michael, Former Territory Sales Manager and Current Senior Business Insight Development Manager.
By combining trends, and data by Kantar with the sales data we house by Category for previous years, we can look analyse the data, design and execute a field sales plan, to deliver your brandâs big bet in store.
Our bespoke system reapp can also support this by providing real time data that can be used to analyse all results from across each store, and utilising our tablet software, Drive, to achieve interventions to resolve any issues found in the analysis.
Make sure that you plan early to ensure your brand have a great presence in store, high availability, maximised sales and ensuring youâre on your customerâs nice list by making your product visible in store, give our team a call!
 â 01244 289164 (Option 1)
