Merchandising Helps You Stand Out Among the Rest
In a world where consumers have boundless choices on where they purchase their tobacco products, your store has to stand out. But how? While there are many ways to rise to the top, the easiest tactic to tackle is merchandising. By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll have takeaways that will allow you to immediately make an impact. Although before you do any merchandising in your store, take a look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. Drive up, walk in and check out as if you were a consumer who has never seen the place before. You may gain some insight when you take a step back and look at your store from a different perspective. Merchandising can be summed up in one word: SOC. Stocked. Organized. Communicated.
The SOC principle is very straightforward but we can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen a store fail on this one. Keeping the shelves stocked is retail 101. You can’t sell what you don’t have so make sure your inventory is properly managed to allow for appropriate shelf stocking. Which leads us to the second part of the SOC principle: Organized. If you do happen to run into an out of stock situation, make the best of it. Fill the gap with another SKU of the same brand until your supply is replenished. This will give your store a more organized appearance. The more organized your shelves, the easier it will be for your consumers to find what they need. Think about the closet in your home – if you’re organized, you can find your favorite shirt without any hassle. Not organized? Well you could be digging through your dirty laundry pile to find something to wear. You don’t want your consumers to dig to find anything in your store so keep it neat and tidy. Last up in the SOC principle: Communicated. No matter what your stance is on point of sale advertising, communicating price is critical to selling. Store signage can help communicate price while also letting the consumer know about the brands you carry. There are plenty of willing manufacturers who would be glad to help you on this front so reach out to see what they can offer.
Our guide to merchandising is really quite simple. Implement it into your weekly routine and you’ll be well on your way to standing out among the rest.
