What in-store elements most influence a shopper to choose one brand or product over another? What is the best means of introducing a new product and motivating a shopper to add it to their basket? Our informal reader poll highlighted just a few instore marketing tools. Instore experience and signage came out the clear winners. However, the answer is that all of the instore communications tools have varying degrees of importance for creating impact with the shopper.
The value of one versus the other depends on the product, the shopper demographic, the retail channel and the objective of the retailer or manufacturer. In addition, one type of communication may be necessary to compliment another and drive the message home to the shopper. Miller Zell’s Elements Report examines the impact of various instore marketing elements and their influence by generation, income and channel. Unfortunately instore communications elements are often segmented in the retailer’s mind. There fore, one vendor may be employed to develop a retail strategy, another to develop the retail design, yet another to install displays while some other firm develops a digital media program. This becomes a costly version of the telephone game where the client’s objective has to be explained over and over and is interpreted in as many different ways. At the end of the day, none of these individual suppliers can be held accountable for the total success or failure of the program. Instead metrics have to be isolated for each portion of the process which does not provide an accurate picture of the collective value of the program elements. This is a loss to both the retailer and the marketer.
Integrated store development can eliminate many of the issues that arise from the typically fractured retail execution process. This method links strategy, design, prototyping and refinement, production of fixtures, décor and graphics, installation/program management and accountability. This holistic approach also makes it easier to facilitate ongoing improvements such as new ideas, products, displays and graphics, making continuous concept renewal a way of life. And with the fickle tastes of today’s consumers concept refinement and reworking happens more often than it used to.
The present store development and renovation process used by most retailers has changed little in the last fifty years. It does not provide for maximizing the impact of all the tools that can influence shopper behavior. It is slow, expensive and permits little accountability for results.
