How Brands can Ensure Business Continuity with Direct Retailer Engagement

These are challenging times. COVID-19 is creating havoc for both the healthcare and consumer business sectors. Lockdowns in cities all over the world have additionally led to panic buying. Consumers fear a looming scarcity and a lack of access to food and daily supplies in the upcoming days. 

Consumption thus far is mostly driven by e-commerce and offline retail like supermarkets, convenience stores, grocery stores, corner shops, etc. But brands also have to comply with COVID-19 safety measures, including social distancing. That has an impact on how much of their field force can service retail in India. Still, brands cannot allow stock-out conditions for their products. Their ability to stay in tough times will impact their brand loyalty in better times.

Can brands afford to keep their retailers –the face of the brand to the consumer – at arm’s length? Especially when it’s not just possible but essential to connect with retailers directly.

Why do brands continue to communicate with retailers through multiple layers of channel partners and sales reps? What would be the business impact if brands could talk directly to every one of their retailers, conveying product information, training, promotions, and discounts and accepting orders, feedback, and queries first-hand and in real-time?

Enter Retailer App – The one-stop solution to driving growth within your friendly neighbourhood retailer.

Enable Retailer E-commerce: Servicing all the retail stores in a country including supermarkets, convenience stores, grocery stores, etc. can seem like a daunting task for any brand. But what if you could enable retailers to order directly, circumventing the need for the large field force – an Amazon for retailers?

Merchandiser vs Machine:  Ensure availability, visibility & POS merchandising compliance by enabling the retailer to click a picture and let our Image Recognition Algorithm do the rest. Now all your merchandiser or mystery shopper needs to do.

Trade Promotions & Retailer Loyalty: Run retailer-specific promotions and discounts. You now have the power to run targeted advertising campaigns across all your retailers to increase and maintain your brand presence. Brands can now run multi-tier loyalty programs with in-app redemptions and rewards.

New Product Launches: 80% of product launches fail. Period. By directly engaging with all your retailers, you are now armed with a powerful tool that enables you to reach out and market your new products across every retail store increasing the chances of success at every product launch.

We found that brands that used our retailer-facing application to establish a direct line of communication with retailers were able to improve their mutual relationship and collaboration dramatically and deliver better customer service. It, in turn, helped brands cut costs and increase sales and market share.

To know more write to us at marketing@bizom.co.uk

Why then, in a world where engaging directly with consumers is not just possible but essential, are brands still content with keeping their retailers –the face of the brand to the consumer – at arm’s length?