In the last four columns we have focused on consumers, the end users who purchase your products and use them in their households. This month we will shift our focus to your customers, the retailers, wholesalers and distributors who buy your products from you. If you are doing direct selling you only have consumers.

We discussed who buys your products, how they use them, why they buy and them and where they buy them. Using that information about where they buy we will now shift to developing alignment with these customers. This is the second key ingredient in our process to help you get more of your products in more shopping carts more often.

We have developed a process to help you sell more products. We call this process CART and over the upcoming months I will share the process to help you sell more. There are four essential ingredients in this recipe for success:

Consumers

Alignment with your customers

Retail plan to sell your products

Trust with consumers and customers

Developing successful relationships with your customers is a key task in your business. One path to a productive relationship is to approach them with a thorough understanding of what they are trying to accomplish and how. It is true these retailers are all selling food but how they choose to do it can be very different from one to another. It is incumbent on you to understand them. There are a number of opportunities for you and others in your business to understand your customers better.

Visit the store

The most important research you can do is in the store. Look at the department where your products are or will be sold. Merchandising units can change from one retailer to another and you should design and develop your packaging to be most effective in these units. They do change so you have to visit stores often and talk to your category manager about where they see the future going with merchandising units.

When you are in the store, focus on pricing to understand what margins they are making and what expectations will be for your products. Store staff can be very valuable to your research. Often they will share many insights into what is happening and why the retailer is doing certain things in store. You also need to take a step back and read the signage for the overall store and the department. What message are they communicating? If the signage is all focused on value then you need to reinforce that message when you visit with your category manager. If the focus is “local” then help them understand what you will be doing to reinforce this message for them.

Follow your customers on line

Every week you should be looking at the flyers to understand the message they are sending to consumers, the items on sale and the level of discount. These could all be topics of conversation at your next category manager meeting.

Retailers’ websites are great sources of information about your customer. You will find an avalanche of consumer-facing messages but if you search a little deeper you will find insights into their strategy and results. Retailers that are publicly traded all have a section of their website targeted at investors, which is where you will find some great nuggets to help you understand them better.

Trade publications such as The Grower, Canadian Grocer, Grocery Business, and many others all include valuable information about your customers. They sell magazines by reporting on what is happening in the industry so take advantage of the great research they are doing. You can even find stories about the people who work at the retailers, which can really be helpful in a meeting. Imagine being the one supplier to say: “great article about you in Canadian Grocer.” 

Every retailer has a profile on social media. You need to follow your customers and if you are not social-media savvy, find someone in your business who is. This is their method of communicating to consumers and it is now immediate. If you miss it you will miss opportunities. Traditional media also report on our industry regularly. You cannot influence Sobeys’ quarterly results, but if they are good you can mention it to your Sobeys category manager.

Use your existing relationships to learn more

If you are an existing supplier you need to think about the questions you should be asking your category manager at your next meeting. Certainly you need to be talking about immediate opportunities and issues but you also need to think long term. Change takes time in your business, so you need to know if there will be more discount stores opening (perhaps a different size package for you?) or moving from bulk to pre-packaged displays. These are all decisions they will be making that impact your business. The better you understand them the better.

There are many opportunities for you and others in your business to learn more about your customers. Challenge different people in your business to report back about what they find. As you build a better understanding you can develop your relationship and sell more. Remember, they do change so when you have a new category manager you need to start at the beginning as they might have different views than the previous one.

If you have any questions about understanding your customers better please give me a call at (902) 489-2900 or send me an email at peter@skufood.com.   Next month we will discuss how to increase the alignment you have with your customers by finding opportunities to support them.

WHAT’S IN STORE?

Electronic shelf labels

I see more electronic shelf labels installed in stores. This was something that was an opportunity a number of years ago but now, with the wireless technology, it is becoming a reality. Stores can communicate with the labels wirelessly and instantly. When you consider the hours that every store can save or reinvest every week, it is a huge amount of money.

Retailers will be moving to more and more technology as labour costs increase and their ability to retain labour becomes more difficult. These are topics of conversation you should have with your customers to illustrate you are in their stores and see what is happening. It might also be an opportunity to share some insights into what you are doing to introduce technology in your business.