By Joel M. Albrizio, President
"Why Do Supermarkets Discount The Discounts By Hiding Them"
OK, it's 2016 and the world seems centered on hot prices. Ahead of most everything important in food retail the customer wants a hot price. With red arrows on each web site example we will illustrate where the weekly ad is. You can ask yourself with all of the money a great ad costs isn't it hidden?
Seriously.....So Where Are The Hot Prices? The Ad?
While as Marketing professionals our goal remains building brand & creating well defined reasoning for customer loyalty, price and item will always represent what is the value proposition.
We Do That Best Through The Circular....When You Can Actually Find It!
So while we take a look at a few of the supermarket retailers web sites, lets try to find the ad.
Understanding The Customer Goes To The Web For Information....
Where Is It?
Regardless of the retail space your best customers go online for information. Supermarkets must have a great story to tell. The circular is an invitation to shop and in the process to tell the all important retail story.
While Far From Perfect In It's Presentation.....
Giant Eagle Customers Will Find The Ad!
The circular is the ultimate call to action. The circular is snail mailed, e-mailed, almost handed to you as you enter the supermarket or used to lure the customer within an e-mail blast with ancillary items to intrigue and have the customer click through to the circular.
Hours upon hours are spent each week to follow the agreed upon item mix and retail brand direction. The branding approach has been designated, quarterly ad meetings have taken place to pick the exact sales approach around which all of the merchandisers will choose the best of class items to execute this sale.
Accounting has approved what the markdown costs will be and we have all agreed on the gross this ad week will break. So all in all we have spent hundreds of hours to develop this circular or most importantly the retailers call to action.
We are all set to go. We are going to crush the competition right?.....
Oops, I think not!
The web designer an important part of the team who often answers to others and not the merchandisers has created this great new web site.
Just One Problem....Where The Heck Is The Ad?
Tens of thousands of dollars have been spent in man hours, branding & its resulting emotions, markdowns, color schemes, etc, etc. and the ad got buried.
While overall everything looks fine online once you enter the supermarket retailers web site one of the most difficult things to find is the circular.
So What Have We All Accomplished? Why All Of The Effort?
What is the emphasis that drives supermarket retail sales?
When we have all agreed the circular is not only relevant but drives sales, let it do the driving! Don't hide the circular. Let the customer find the circular, understand your story with your specials and allow this now well branded value proposition to condition the customer with a defined emotion to look further as to what your food retail organization does well.
Lets Not Forget Why The Customer Most Likely Visited The Site!
Allow the customer to find the sales information deriving the comfort zone to order the catering, specialty baskets etc. after becoming a regular customer.
When we block the customers immediate access to circular information we raise the barrier of entry for retail sales and ultimately restrict retail sales growth.
In essence we have given away the gross in the ad to the customer who was going to shop the supermarket anyway!
The very sales growth we all worked so hard for and the return on investment we have budgeted so long for was thwarted by becoming a low level priority online.
Ask the customer for the sale, you have worked hard for it.
Thank-you for all of you ideas and support.