The Heinzeroth Blog

Phygital retail. It’s a new buzzword for an omnichannel sales approach that offers shoppers a connected experience whether they are shopping in-store or online. It’s a strategy that builds upon the boom in online shopping as well as click-and-mortar, when buyers pick up items they ordered online.

If your products involve a warranty, kudos to you for adding that special value to your brand. But is the way in which you register customer purchases making it possible for you to capture key insights and also to stay connected with your customers? For any company considering a content marketing program, a good place to apply its automated communication features is with your warranty registration process.

"With online meetings we consistently miss one very important thing" states one of our agency's clients recently. "We totally lose the ability to show our product advantages in person, giving buyers a chance to touch and feel the products."

This particular client was talking about Product Line Review (PLR) meetings with retail buyers at Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards and other major DIY retailers. There's a lot riding on those meetings which in pre-pandemic days were almost always done in person. PLR meetings often make all the difference in determining which brands will be on the retailers' shelves next season.

This absence of an experiential element caused us to think about ways our creative team can help companies come out on top in those meetings, even when the obvious limitation is that all things being discussed are on a computer screen.

Before Covid-19 safety measures became part of the shopping experience, the role of product packaging and P.O.P. was mostly to provide an immersive consumer experience for your brand. Capture attention. Generate interest. Convert browsers into buyers. (etc.).

And while those in-store merchandising tasks are still important, consumers are expecting more from their shopping trips these days. As reflected in national surveys, consumers prefer safe practices by the retailer. But taking this to a level that possibly affects your merchandising, how might those shopper expectations about safety carry through to preferences in packaging? And if you provide signage, custom racks or other physical display systems, is the format helping to make the shopping experience as safe as it can be?

Would you shop at a retail store that didn’t implement some sort of safety measures to protect its customers from Covid-19? Do you notice when someone inside the store is improperly wearing a face mask (or not at all)? Do you look for the hand sanitizer station when you walk in or perhaps note if there are “Social-Distancing” floor stickers at checkout?

Although the economy as a whole is suffering due to the pandemic, major hardware and home center retailers have seen a significant jump in online sales due to the rise in consumer shopping from home. Here are some tips to help you maximize the visibility as well as sales conversion of your products in online channels.

MORE PLANNING IDEAS FOR SUCCESS IN PRODUCT LINE REVIEWS:

Considering the wide range of point-of-sale tracking tools available to help you prepare for your next Product Line Review (PLR), you may be missing the boat if you aren't equipped to address the metrics your merchant is most concerned about. Chances are, you may otherwise be inclined to go  over things that many buyers consider to be a waste of time. And even if you are bringing loads of information, perhaps it isn't presented in the way your buyer wants to view the figures. To help you plan for your next presentation, here are some thought starters you might keep in mind.

 

For any of us that have worked extensively over the years on packaging design, planograms, POP messaging and other in-store tactics, the dramatic shift toward online sales is a crystal-clear call for omni-channel thinking. It’s evident that we must present products in the best light for sales conversions “everywhere” while certainly not forgetting a continued strong focus on brick and mortar stores. To make the most of this new shopping landscape, there are some emerging best practices worth noting.  

When it comes to retail trends, no single organization has done more to change the way that people shop in recent years than Amazon. This remarkable company is innovating at a faster pace than everyone by improving the shopping experience with rich, easily searchable content and by adding the immensely popular Prime. Sellers who ignore the impact of this marketing juggernaut run the risk of missing a huge opportunity to reach a constantly growing number of customers who shop online first.

 

If your company manufactures do-it-yourself products, chances are good that new product development is a key part of your strategic plan. New products often serve as the life-blood of DIY categories that have come to expect a continual flow of new choices. As you look at current revenue and profits, you might ask how much of that financial performance was due to products you've introduced in the past 5 years alone. In many categories that number can easily exceed 50%. To make sure your new product development process is doing all it can for company growth and your brand position at retail, here are some practices we have noted to be successful in the DIY channel.