Winning in the Trenches

The football season is upon us in full force with high school, college and professional teams taking to the gridiron to the cheers of thousands. In the retail world, we have always used football and other sports world analogies as a way to clarify the nature of competitive situations and teamwork. This week, Jon Hauptman does this adeptly in the new edition of Willard Bishop Competitive Edge. In, “Blocking and Tackling to Win at Retail Today,” he focuses on how successful football coaches almost always say the game is won in trenches. No matter how good the game plan, without the basics of blocking and tackling, it can all fall apart. When the game is lost, coaches always go back to the basics.

This is a particularly good analogy for the members of the at-retail merchandising and marketing service industry. The best laid plans of brand marketers and retailers can fall apart quickly if not well executed in the trenches, in this case the trenches being the shelves and aisles of stores around the country.

In Competitive Edge, Hauptman focuses mostly on pricing tactics as a way to win at retail. However, there are a few suggestions that speak directly to at-retail execution. One such tip is to make sure that shoppers find and appreciate great prices and values. This could mean new promotional shelf tags or end-cap displays. Another is to tailor the assortment offered by individual stores. This could mean category resets and other out-of-stock reducing activities performed by NARMS members.

Those are a few specific examples, but the larger point is that retailers and manufacturers can improve the performance of brands by getting back to the basics. The members of NARMS are the interior linemen that open up the running lanes and fill the gaps to make sure that the game plan will be a success. It all starts up front.

Ramping Up Training with NARMScertifyU

While watching local television news broadcasts this week, it is hard to avoid a story about retailers ramping up their store staffs for the upcoming holiday season. With just three months left before Christmas, holiday hiring is in full force. The busiest time of the year also means staffing up on cashiers, sales floor associates and overnight set-up crews to handle the increased store traffic. Media reports are mixed as to whether holiday hiring will be up or down this season, but regardless of the level, the challenge of training new hires still exists. After all, these entry level employees are charged with the care and customer service of the brand marketer and retailers most valuable asset.

For those brand marketers and retailers who hire third-party at-retail merchandising and marketing companies to perform various initiatives in the aisles, training is also a top priority. They want field representatives who have a strong foundation in the basics of retail merchandising. Because of this need, NARMS members and their field reps have a powerful training resource available to them in the form of NARMScertifyU.

NARMScertifyU is an online learning center offering career-building courses. Developed by industry experts for marketing service representatives, NARMScertifyU provides a valuable learning experience. Online courses can be accessed anywhere and anytime, so the reps can learn at their own pace. It is an opportunity to become an industry expert by earning course certificates. Each certificate earned leads to more exposure and credibility. The increased retail knowledge improves job satisfaction and overall success for all stakeholders.

Currently, NARMScertifyU offers eight courses for $15 each: Mystery Shopping, Retail Visit Excellence, Merchandising Standards, Demonstrations, Event Marketing, Fixture Installation, Train the Trainer and Team Lead Skills. Block pricing is available for member companies to purchase on-line courses for their field reps at a great savings.

NARMScertifyU represents a quick, easy and inexpensive option for enhanced at-retail service knowledge for both the service company and field personnel. To learn more, visit the site here and then help spread the word of this tremendous industry building resource.

Sept 23, 2011 IRI/Morning NewsBeat

Below is the list of articles you will find for the week ending 9/23/11 edition of Retail Industry News.

- Walmart CEO On The Economy, Taxes, And Priorities
- Sansolo Speaks: Missed Opportunity
- Costco Eyes France For New Stores
- Pennsylvania Shuts Down Wine Kiosk Program
- Survey: Economic Pressures Tough On Most Independent Grocers
- FastNewsBeat
- The MNB Wal-Mart Watch
- Executive Suite

Click here to read Retail Industry News

CROSSMARK Named A Top Technology Innovator For Second Consecutive Year

PLANO, TX — CROSSMARK, a leading sales and marketing services company in the consumer goods industry, has been named to InformationWeek’s list of top 250 innovators, part of the InformationWeek500.
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Lawrence Merchandising Announces Partnership with Natural Insight for Enhanced Merchandising Reporting Platform

MINNEAPOLIS — Lawrence Merchandising, a Minneapolis-based Merchandising Service Organization, today announced their partnership with Natural Insight as the new platform for their enhanced Merchandising Reporting System.

“As Lawrence Merchandising continues to grow, we take every opportunity to identify ways to improve our day-to-day processes,” said Cindy Sattler, President and CEO of Lawrence Merchandising. “Implementing the Natural Insight system enables our reps greater ease of use through their state-of-the-art solution and ensures the ongoing success of our team in providing superior service every day. We look forward to sharing the many benefits of this system with our clients through optimized reporting that effectively communicates real-time in-store service results.”
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The Reach of Sampling and Demos

If you attended any of the sampling and demo study sessions at the past few NARMS Spring Conferences, you know that product sampling is very effective at increasing sales and getting shoppers to change their buying behavior. The sessions and research were presented by Dr. Kenny Herbst of Wake Forest University. A recent guest column in PROMO Magazine by Larry Burns, the Chief Executive Officer of Start Sampling, goes a step further and says that samplings and demos are even more important now because of the tremendous influence of social media on Word of Mouth marketing. In the story, Burns gives manufacturers and retailers some basic rules for executing a sample program.

The first rule for the marketer is to ask if the brand should be one that offers samples. The next is to define success in terms of who, what, when, where and how you want your brand experience delivered to. Support those objectives with measurable and predefined metrics.

Those are the top line rules and they make a lot of sense. But at the rate at which one consumer experience gets relayed to the next, some new rules have emerged. Here are a few more: Be imaginative on where you want people to experience your brand. Consider executing your sampling program across multiple channels and touchpoints using consistent messages. Create more samples than you think you may need so you can take full advantage of new opportunities. Account for the Word of Mouth effectiveness when measuring the return on a program. A new benchmark is that for each sample, an additional five people hear about the product.

Sampling combined with Shopper Marketing and Word of Mouth creates a powerful synergy that has taken sampling and demo programs to many more touchpoints. The rule that is not mentioned in the story may be the most important of all. Partner with the professional Event Marketing members of NARMS to execute your sampling and demo program. With the expanded reach of a single customer interaction, brand marketers are going to want consistent execution that these experienced and well trained brand representatives offer at-retail. Click here to view the PROMO story.

Remodel-Where the Action Is

What if you could take a look into the new store and remodel plans and trends for five major grocery chains in one convenient place. A recent Supermarket News Webinar – Maximizing Cap-Ex Returns - did just that. Editor Mark Hamstra hosted the event that featured a section entitled Trends in Capital Spending for U.S. Supermarkets. The section was lead by Andrew Wolf, the Managing Director of BB&T Capital Markets. Capital Expenditures or Cap-Ex is the place in the annual budget where retailers plan for new store growth, remodel of existing space and technological investments.

Wolf made three major points during his address. First, Cap-Ex is driven by and follows sales. Second, Cap-Ex spending is down significantly among the five chains he examined. Third, Cap-Ex is below trend when looking at the past ten years. The chains he studied where Kroger, Safeway, Whole Foods, Publix and Supervalu.

According to the BB&T research, the average Cap-Ex expenditure among the five chains in 2010 was 2.4% of sales. That is down sharply from an average of 3.0% in 2009. Not coincidentally, the NARMS PIC study published in early 2010 - Continuing to Build Out the Future of Retail – put the 2009 number at 3.35% across all retail channels.

In general, during the last two years sales have been either negative or flat and the square footage of the studied retailers has followed. Penetration by consumers has been great for grocery throughout a ten year period, but the number of trips per year has shrunk from 72 to 57. Channel blurring is thought to be the culprit.

More of the Cap-Ex dollar is going toward technological investment with closer to 40% of Cap-Ex going there rather than new store and remodel. That is up significantly from the 0% that was seen during the last five years. These numbers also match closely with the PIC Study.

Wolf also showed a dramatic shift toward remodel and away from news stores in his research. This also corroborates findings in the PIC Study that showed remodel related spending at 21% of Cap-Ex in 2006 vs. 38% in 2010. As a reminder, the PIC study looked at a much broader set of data in terms of number of chains and channels.

While these numbers and trends may be seen as troubling to at-retail merchandising and marketing service companies, the fact that remodel and technological spending is up represents a great opportunity. Some of that technology spending is being directed at self-service vending machines which could present installation and service opportunities.

Sept 16, 2011 IRI/Morning NewsBeat

Below is the list of articles you will find for the week ending 9/16/11 edition of Retail Industry News.

- Grocery Chains Try To Hold Line On Prices Even As Costs Increase
- Marsh Plans $60 Million Investment In New And Remodeled Stores
- Food Insecurity Numbers Drop, But Concerns Remain
- Sansolo Speaks: Bed, Bath and Brilliant
- Big Y Joins Movement Away From Self-Checkout
- Loblaws Launches New Upscale Private Brand Line
- Price Chopper Enters E-Grocery Business
- FastNewsBeat
- The MNB Wal-Mart Watch
- Executive Suite
- Special Update: Applying Price Measures to Frequently Promoted Items

Click here to read Retail Industry News

Midford Named Conference Chair for 2012

Stevens Point, WI… Stefan Midford has been named as Conference Chair for the 2012 NARMS Spring Conference scheduled for April 14-17, 2012 at Saddlebrook Resort, Wesley Chapel, FL. As chair of the 2012 NARMS Spring Conference, Midford will corroborate with NARMS Team (staff) members and responsible board of director and division committee efforts in determining program agenda elements.

As President and CEO of Natural Insight, a NARMS International associate member company, Midford has over 30 years of experience in information technology, operations and workforce management. His extensive business background includes leadership roles at major credit, retail and marketing businesses, both in the U.S. and Canada, with assignments at Discover Financial Services, Sears Roebuck & Co., Sears Canada Inc. and prior to founding Natural Insight, as COO at Intersections, Inc.

Midford’s management experience gives him insight into the strategic challenges facing organizations with distributed workforces, as well as the specialized logistical issues that go with them. He is a member of the Institute of Global Work at Boston University and a member of the NARMS International Associate Member Committee.

Additionally, Midford is an active proponent of the need for continued advancement of Science and Technology in schools and works as a mentor for a northern Virginia high school robotics team. He is an avid photographer and a member of Mindshare, an invitation-only group of Washington D.C. area CEO’s leading high growth technology companies.

NARMS’ 400+ member companies perform well over $3 billion in merchandising services, sales marketing, event marketing, demonstration and other retail services annually. The international trade association serves as a “central gathering point” for the retailing industry; promoting and establishing industry standards; providing critical industry research studies and educational information about the industry while acting as a voice for its diverse membership of service providers, manufacturers, retailers, and associates. NARMS represents all classes of trade including: grocery, drug, mass, department, home and building centers, computer and office supply, electronic, value retailers, specialty, and convenience retailers.

The varied educational offerings supporting improvement and excellence in retailing practices are all part of NARMS – U, the educational arm of NARMS International, and include continuing education under the banner of www.NARMScertifyU.com.

Additional NARMS information is available at www.narms.com, including details about the 17th NARMS Spring Conference & Exposition at Saddlebrook Resort, Wesley Chapel, FL on April 14-17, 2012.

Contact:
Ken McKenzie
Vice President
National Association for Retail Marketing Services
2417 Post Road
Stevens Point, WI 54481
Phone: 1 888 526-2767
kmckenzie@narms.com

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Mobile Apps Augment Rep Efficiency

There is an app for that. Smart phone users around the world know that they have an unlimited selection of tools available to help them with just about every part of life. Shoppers are particularly aware of the various apps that give them an edge when they are in the store. But it is not just the shoppers who benefit at-retail. The members of NARMS, at-retail merchandising and marketing service companies, are trading in traditional methods of data capture for devices that allow real-time data and service modifications to be made on the spot. This column in Supermarket News by Julie Gallagher discusses this sensation and features several NARMS associate and service members as experts on the topic.

Time is always a big factor. In the article, Stefan Midford of NARMS member Natural Insight explains that retailers can now be assured that initiatives such as price changes or display set-ups did indeed happen when they were scheduled. In fact, GPS tells third-party providers that the reps checked in at the right location. This provides a key field management tool and quickly enables a replacement to be reassigned if need be.

The use of smart phones as data gathering devices shortens up what once was a long and tedious data roll-up process that could involve taking digital pictures and recording answers with pen and paper. Going home to upload photos and key in answers adds time and opens up greater possibility for error. Now the customer does not have to wait nearly as long for a snap-shot of what their stores, products and displays look like in the aisles and on the shelves.

Cost is another factor. What once cost a fortune and could only be used on high-end programs, can now be in the hands of virtually any field rep and be leveraged across many programs. These devices usually sell for around $100.

Another big and unexpected factor is the morale lift being experienced by users. In the story, Joel Barham of JOH-SellEthics LLC says that use of smart phones and custom apps adds to the professionalism and confidence of his reps. He said that even non-users adapted quickly to the new technology. Click here to read the story as it appears in Supermarket News.