Corporate Sponsorship is the Key We all like it when someone does us a good turn and likewise we revel in the warm glow when we do a good deed for someone in need of our help. Good deeds are not only within the gift of individuals though since very many large companies feel it’s important to do charitable work or to raise funds to support good causes. For example, major manufacturers in the retail world have done their part for the greater good by supporting the Sport Relief charity in 2010. The money raised by Sport Relief helps fund [...]
Well, it’s been some time since I last settled into writing the first series of articles on this blog. Since then I, and our whole team, have been involved in many new and exciting retail initiatives, encompassing macro and micro space planning optimisation, assortment planning, virtual store research, aisle management and many innovative shopper insights projects all around the world, all of which have added enormously to our experience and breadth of retail knowledge here at Fifth Dimension. Our software development teams have also been busily building new generations of our advanced software for release this coming year, and so [...]
Trade Promotion – the King is dead; long live the King!? Or so some would have you believe. Trade Promotion or In-Store Marketing – The King of Prising Open the Retailers’ Iron Grip on Shelf Space – is perhaps still well and truly alive and kickin’; even in the depths of the deepest recession we’ve seen in decades. But, what if Joe Mandese’s prediction had been right in his article ‘Fast Forward: Is Mass Marketing History About To Repeat Itself?’, just over two years and a bold, ‘booming’ economy ago? Who knows what would be happening now in trade spending? [...]
Through 2003 to 2005 Unilever and United Co-op Stores collaborated on designing, testing and implementing a ‘Perfect Store’ layout. Research was commissioned in response to a realization that important Shopper Missions were poorly supported by the layout of typical convenience stores.
We look at Unilever’s’ initial findings and the Virtual Store tests we conducted to understand local shoppers’ reactions to the layout changes. We discuss the insights gained, the new store layout principles developed for refurbishing the format and their subsequent implementation in the pilot store .
The pilot validated the research and proved that, after an initial sales surge, average weekly sales stabilized 8.9% up overall; average spend per customer rose by 9% and the pilot store’s gross profits increased by 9.7%. These improvements were then rolled out to more convenience stores in the Co-op portfolio with similar success. [...]
