Why luxury brands should visit their stockists

9 Feb

Did you know 80% of luxury goods sales occur in the physical realm of retail, and 62% of affluent consumers said they preferred making purchases in stores?

This is primarily because luxury marketing relies heavily on the audience’s physical experience. People pay a premium for superior materials or ingredients, and it’s hard to convey the quality of these online.

When someone sees your luxury brand in a store, they can touch, feel and smell your products, and these tangible experiences have a dramatic effect on your conversion rates. This is why it’s so crucial that luxury brands should visit their stockists to ensure their products are being displayed exactly the way they want them to be. If they’re not, they could be losing out on hundreds of conversions every single day.

Are you a luxury brand that’s partnered with retailers to stock your products? Are you wondering if you should check on your displays to ensure their compliance with your brand guidelines? The answer is that you most definitely should pay a store visit to your stockist; here are the most common challenges which luxury brands face when brick-and-mortar retailers stock their products.

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1. The retailer's display doesn’t comply with your luxury brand guidelines

There is no room for mistakes or imperfections in luxury branding, and you can’t regain a first impression. If a retailer isn’t displaying your products in a way that adheres to your brand guidelines, it will damage your reputation in a few ways.

It breaks down customer trust - People rely on consistency to form a perception of the brands they love. They start to expect a certain experience when they interact with your brand, whether that be online, in-store or over the phone. They expect the same visuals, the same service and the same experience, so when that experience is different, it leads them to question your authenticity, and they become confused about who you are or what you stand for.

You can’t get back a first impression - You’ve stocked your luxury brand in a large retailer to improve visibility and awareness, so you’re hoping thousands of people will see your brand every day. If your display isn’t aligned with your brand, it means you’re giving off the wrong first impression every day. That is now how those new potential customers view your brand, and if you’re not checking your display, you’re putting all of the control in your stockist's hands.

It could place you below your competitors in your customer’s mind - Let’s say you go to your stockist and see that your luxury brand is placed between two high-end competitors, their displays look nothing short of perfect, and yours is looking tired and run down. Which brand is your ideal audience going to buy? You guessed it, your competitors. The worst thing is that once they’ve made that initial purchase, it will be hard to sway them over to your product to try something new. Especially if you’re selling something like makeup or fragrances.

Luxury brand guidelines are your key to successful positioning, so if your retailer is getting them wrong, it can damage your entire brand strategy.

2. Your luxury product display is not clean and tidy

As we mentioned previously, the stakes are high in luxury marketing. People are paying a premium for your products for a reason, so they expect nothing less than perfection when interacting with your brand.

They expect flawless service and impeccable standards, so if they walk into a store and your display looks anything less than perfect, it will be harder to convince them to part with their cash.

“In fact, store cleanliness and tidiness are not something to be overlooked because 64% of shoppers say they didn’t buy anything from a store and left due to its poor appearance. ”

Not paying a regular visit to your stockist can mean your display gets neglected, leading to a build-up of dust, dirt and misplaced products. Of course, when you contact your brick-and-mortar stockist, they will assure you that they regularly clean their displays, but you will only get the true answer if you visit your display yourself.

Perhaps they do a clean at the end of every day, but during the day, they leave your products to get messed up and misplaced, which makes your display look messy and unappealing to potential customers.

Or maybe your display looks ok, but the rest of the store looks a mess; if this is the case, your potential customers will leave before they’ve even discovered your display. We recommend always visiting your stockist to ensure that cleanliness standards are kept at an optimal level.

3. Your luxury products are out of stock

Have you ever been to a department store and the shelves are empty? No matter how badly you want to buy the product, you rarely go and ask the sales assistant if they have any more available because you assume they’re out of stock if they’re not on the shelves.

Well, this could be happening to your luxury brand too. If your chosen stockist is not replenishing your shelves as fast as they are selling your products, then you could be leaving huge amounts of money on the table.

It’s your job to visit your brick-and-mortar retailer to check that they’re keeping your shelves nice and full. If you were to visit your store every week, you’d start to see a pattern emerge of how often your shelves went empty, and this would make it easy for you to raise the issue with your contact at the store.

How can you easily do this?

Use a digital store visit app such as Ocasta Review. The Review store visit app lets you ask questions with photos, Yes/No, sliding vibe scales 0-100% and dropdowns. This means you can snap photos and keep a detailed report of when your shelves were empty. Every answer builds up a scored visit audit report, making it easy to spot any issues and let your retailer know.

4. The competition’s signage or display is blocking yours

Whilst you can’t control where a competitor is placed within the retail store, you can control where and how your products are displayed.

If a competitor's products or signs are covering yours, then you are in all your rights to raise this issue with your stockist. If you visit the store, you may also notice that some of your signage is missing, which can be detrimental to your sales if a competitor who offers the same products has their sign on full display. It means that on a daily basis, your competition could be stealing your audience.

5. Your luxury display could be damaged or broken

As we’ve discussed in the previous points, having a luxury display which is nothing short of perfect can do serious damage to your luxury brand.

So, imagine if your products are being displayed on a damaged platform. Perhaps your light bulbs have stopped working; your videos aren’t working, your shelves are broken, your signage is ripped or damaged, or your back walls are outdated/incorrect or damaged and don’t match the store planogram.

The possibilities are endless, and if you’re not carrying out regular store visits, you could risk having your product displayed on a damaged display for weeks, months or years.

So how can you effectively and efficiently carry out regular store visits?

Enter Ocasta Review, a digital store visit app that allows you to spend every store visit on what matters to drive sales.

In Review, you can build a customised template your team can use for every store visit. This consistency allows you to focus on the things you care about.

It enables them to swipe, tape and type to collect their answers, and they can even take pictures to submit with their report.

With paper and spreadsheets, it can be easy to know what needs changing but never actually take action to make the changes. With Review, your staff can set in the moment actions as they go to ensure that nothing slips through the net. For example, if they notice missing signs, they can set the action to email the retail contact about missing signage before a certain date.

Best of all, the insights from each store visit report are collated into an overarching summary allowing you to spot trends and emerging patterns. This will make it easy to prevent issues from happening, and having tangible proof makes those conversations with your stockist much easier.

Are you a luxury brand looking to easily manage your displays in stockist stores?

Try Ocasta Review, it’s used by some of the biggest retailers to ensure their displays are always kept in perfect condition. Victoria’s Secret, Next and Virgin Media O2, just to name a few.

If you’re interested in trying Review for your business, you can try it for free for 60 days. Click the button below to find out more.

Here’s how the pilot works:

1. A personalised, quick demo to check we're both a good fit for each other
2. If that goes well, a 60-day pilot in the field with your pilot sales team
3. If you’re happy with the pilot, you can launch it across your entire sales team

Get started now and see how Review can work for you too.

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