3 ways retailers are taking advantage of restrictions and lockdowns.

Those on the inside, working within retail ops teams understand the power of an efficient merchandising team.

But those on the outside, within the other departments at a head office, or even people working within the stores often overlook just how important it is to have a responsive, detailed, and trusted merchandising services team.

• First, you need coverage – getting the right people across all geographies under tight timelines.

• Then, you need a fully scalable team – being able to respond to new projects and challenges on-demand, without putting a huge strain on your own workforce.

• Of course, you need tight processes and systems – ensuring that everything is done right the first time and that the information collected is 100% correct.

• Lastly, you need hustle – because no one has time to waste chasing people down.

Of course, at Canada’s Best Merchandising Services, CBSF’s sister company, I know we have all of these key components (and more). The biggest advantage being that as a 3rd-party merchandising specialist that has a range of experiences, working with many brands and covering many strategies, you get an outsider’s perspective to review your team’s work. 

Now, over the past few months, we’ve seen a shift in the work that our merchandising team’s have focused on.

Partially driven by client demand and partially driven by the simple fact that right now, during the lockdowns, restrictions, and uncertainty one thing is clear:

Retailers are shifting focus away from location growth and new store openings and refocusing efforts on making the most of their current spaces and reconfiguring them to fit the current needs best.

And because of this refocus, one more thing is clear:

If you don’t have a trusted merchandising services team at your fingertips, you can’t respond to the ever-changing retail ops dynamics… and you certainly can’t take advantage of the 3 pivots outlined below.

#1 – TAKE ADVANTAGE OF STORE SHUTDOWNS TO COMPLETE FULL SITE SURVEYS

Often, there’s a disconnect between what a head office has on paper and what’s sitting in each of their locations. Nothing huge. But enough of a difference to create complications during future rollouts – wasting time, materials, and budget.

For example, when a new store is built, it’s done off a set of plans and during the build process, minor changes are made: a run of shelving is shortened here, a display changes dimensions there, entire sections may be reconfigured based on real-world eyelines, visibility and lighting… of course none of this is a challenge until the next program is planned – only to find that original plans were never updated to reflect these changes.

Now, scale this across every department, across every location, and things can get out of hand quickly.

So when one of our US-based clients approached us to complete site surveys for their locations, the opportunity was clear: take advantage of the lockdowns and customer-free locations to audit each location – confirming fixture sizes, types, floor plans, signage requirements, and more.

The benefit to our client? Well, from our site audits we generated 3D CAD drawings of all locations, fixtures, and signage needs.

So rather than having to call each store or worse, produce standard sizing and send everything out only to find that the fixtures or signage don’t fit or go unused – their US teams in the head office could produce accurate take-offs for all future programs.

So ask yourself, when was the last time you completed a full store audit?

Do you find your teams have to communicate with each location to plan a rollout?

Are your locations not taking full advantage of the programs you invest in?

This may be the time for your company to complete a full store audit of each of its locations – a small investment today will save time and money in the future.

#2 – RECONFIGURE YOUR STORES TO ACCOUNT FOR BOPIS AND INCREASED WAREHOUSING

With the sudden and dramatic shift to BOPIS, many retailers responded with make-shift systems, processes, staging and warehousing spaces.

Of course, as time passed and we all saw the need to make BOPIS a core part of every store space – retailers are reconfiguring their spaces in two key ways:

Create the needed staging space to account for BOPIS

• This is seen both on the customer-facing, self-pickup side of the business and on the picking, staging, and delivery side of the business.
• For customers, new technology like automated check-in processes, automated lockboxes, and detailed wayfinding are helping retailers rely less on staffing needs and are allowing for contactless pickup.
• For store staff and delivery, reconfiguring the front of the store to allow for streamlined picking, product staging, and clear and straightforward labeling helps increase staff productivity.
• But of course, we’re not looking to make such significant changes when stores re-open to customers or for those working in hybrid models – the need to keep these staging areas locked up, secure, and not impeding customer foot traffic.
• Ultimately these reconfigurations are a mix of store environment design, a deep understanding of retail fixtures, and of course, installation and merchandising services.

Reducing floor space and increasing warehousing space

• With the reduced need to have all of your product on every shelf, all of the time, many retailers are choosing to pull back on the number of goods on the floor.
• This helps limit the “empty shelf” look that plagued Target Canada for so long, but it also helps reduce the demand on a store’s team to restock departments.
• Increasing warehouse space within each location also allows for each site to become a micro-fulfillment center – something I wrote about back in February in my post 6 Retail Innovations That Put Customers And Sales First.

Ultimately, there’s never a wrong time to make better use of your space. And if you’ve been mainly focused on new stores or even complete rebuilds – a simple reconfiguration will give you and your customers what they need faster and at a lower cost than a complete rebuild.

#3 – USE THIS TIME TO REMERCHANDISE YOUR STORES

I just spoke about the “empty shelf” look, and of course, that’s expected when a store is in lockdown. But depending on the region and location, your supply chain, and the number of goods you have on hand, at a certain point, every retailer needs to jump back onto remerchandising.

So here’s where many retailers run into a challenge – should they staff up? Or pull people off of BOPIS to get ready for the re-opening? Or bring in an outside team to attack the problem and get the store ready to be fully merchandised.
If you’re looking for help with remerchandising – here are three reasons why you may want to consider Canada’s Best Merchandising Services.

WE’RE PROUDLY CANADIAN

• At CBMS, we work with customers across North America and are proud to produce, manufacture, and develop products here at home in Canada, where our customers benefit from localized expertise.

TIMELINES ARE EVERYTHING

• The reality for every retailer is that you have to execute quickly and efficiently to remain competitive and ahead of the curve. When you feel intimidated by the amount of work and timelines it takes to complete, turn to CBMS. With our expertise in project management and processes, we ensure you stay on track without compromising quality.

OUR TEAM IS YOURS

• Our customers love the fact that they have a team dedicated to their project and the demands that come with launching a retail program. Our people are here to work with you, by your side, creating a collaborative partnership where you’re never left alone.

NOW, MORE THAN EVER, RETAILERS NEED A TRUSTED MERCHANDISING SERVICES TEAM

This is a simple fact.

Finding the right people to execute in all of your geographies is a challenge. Ensuring everything is done right the first time without callbacks or QA-ing all of the work is challenging. Getting the reporting and proof you need to complete the job (and make sure “done” is really “done”) is a challenge.

At CBMS, we’ve got this all figured out. After all, it’s all we do.

So if you need help with merchandising services – contact our merchandising team, and we’ll walk you through how we can help.