We’ve already talked about how to improve our visibility in the point of sales, but visibility is not the only thing to take into account. There are a range of KPIs we must take into account because they directly affect our sales.
How can these KPIs help us measure the success of our business? Let’s first remember that KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are indicators used to measure the success of a particular variable. It’s important that our chosen KPIs are specific, measurable and precise, as well as comparable with time. If not, they won’t be relevant and won’t allow us t obtain a good analysis, which would allow us to take accurate decisions.
What do point of sales KPIs measure? There are different types, although some of the most representative focus on verifying if our visibility is good enough, on controlling if our product is available or on controlling tears. Let’s see some examples:
The famous marketing mix can hold 4, 5 or even 7 Ps. However, in our points of sales, it’s important that we pay attention to 3 in particular: price, promotions and our placement.
We must carry out a thorough monitoring and a tight control of our price strategy: is the retailer offering our product at our agreed price? How are our prices compared to our competitors’? How does a reduction or an increase in our price affect our consumers’ purchase behavior?
The same happens with our promotions. Which percentage of promotions do we have in each of our points of sales? How has our offer worked compared to our previous promotions? Have sales of the promoted product significantly increased?
Lastly, let’s talk about placement. It can seem a trivial variable, but it affects directly our sales. According to our target audience, our products should be placed one way or another. Should we place them at eye-level? At hand height? At a child’s eye-level? Next, we explain some of the KPIs we must take into account regarding placement in the point of sales.
This indicator measures the percentage of space our product owns in the shelf of a particular point of sales. How many centimeters does our brand have in relation to the total of centimeters available?
Most of the clients go shopping to their favorite points of sales without any list, that is, they purchase by impulse. If the brand they usually purchase is not there, they generally choose another one that is, they don’t go to another point of sales to search that particular brand. This is why it’s important to count on a good SOS in our points of sales; our product must be visible so our clients can easily find it and purchase it, as if they try one of our competitors’ products we may lose them as clients.
Take care of your presence in the shelves. How many facings do you have in every shelf, in every point of sales? A tool that can makes things easier for you is image recognition technology, as it offers these indicators through a picture of the shelf in a few minutes. Used with a CRM system, which allows you to easily audit the shelves, our situation in the point of sales can be analyzed and compared to our competitors’. Learn more about these tools and image recognition here!
This metric, however, won’t measure our percentage of space in the shelf, but our availability. It won’t cover our availability in the point of sales either, but in the shelf, which is where our client will look for our product.
It makes no sense to control our product’s visibility if later on we run out of products to offer. A tight control on the shelves is required so we get to know that if the product is where it should be or not, and if the quantity is enough to avoid tears. OSA can depend on out of stock situations or on a lack of monitoring on our part; anyways, we must pay attention, every time we visit one of our points of sales, that our space in the shelves is full of our products, and if it isn’t, immediately inform about it and take the pertinent decisions.
Lastly, it’s important to calculate which percentage of our products goes out of stock. Our products must always be available in our points of sales, as our sales and our capacity to successfully cover our clients’ needs depend on that.
An OOS situation can be due to a lack of visits or a delay when performing them, which can be solved with established commercial processes. It can also happen that the product has been sold more than normal, which can be due to many factors (seasonality, promotions, strategy changes, competition…), and in this case we should investigate the reason.
Maybe you already knew them, or maybe you have discovered something new; either way, remember to take into account these indicators every time your commercial team visits your points of sales.