On December 11, in the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, OPEN Group held a business breakfast on the topic “Favorite Shop. How in-store process optimization helps drive customers.”
During the meeting, representatives of retail, manufacturers of consumer goods, digitalization experts and trade marketers discussed current market trends and technologies in the field of retail.
The moderator of the meeting, OPEN Group outsourcing director Pavel Prokhorov, spoke about global trends and challenges of retail. He noted that, according to studies, the most solvent group of people aged 30 to 40 years is willing to pay more if the purchase process is more convenient and saves time.
"At the moment, a large number of technologies are used in retail, which allows us not only to monitor the current situation, to recognize faces, emotions and images, but also to understand how sales will change in the near future based on consumer sentiment. According to our forecasts, despite their increasing popularity, online sales will not crowd out offline, as retail remains the main sales driver and a place to get to know the brand. At the same time, gaining loyalty is the most important challenge for all sales channels, and the price here is not a fundamental factor. Most people look at improved customer experience in terms of buying impressions, personalization of retailer's promotional offers, the atmosphere of the store and the optionality of the purchase process are important for them,” he outlined.
Evgeniy Verbov, head of retail analytics at Nielsen, discussed the value of the loyalty program for customers, retailers and manufacturers. He noted that most customers choose a store that has a loyalty program. In Russia, the discount format is popular and in demand. It is an additional opportunity for the retailer to communicate with his audience and the opportunity to get a quality insider. Thus, the loyalty program becomes the main competitive advantage of the retailer.
"At Nielsen, we are engaged in the technical support of loyalty programs and the search for insights that the loyalty program hides, the search for new approaches to the manufacturer and forecasting. Software development, cash desk integration and other technical innovations allow us to collect valuable information. For example, based on the received check data, we optimize sales - information on the date and time of purchase, its composition and the total amount is especially valuable. This allows you to do additional analytics, which can help, for example, when launching a new product,” he said.
OPEN Group business development manager Pavel Reshetnikov spoke about the benefits of the Dynamic Monitoring OSA Service, which works 24 hours a day and controls the availability of goods on the shelf by analyzing sales statistics, reading the situation on the shelf using a camera on rails and sending the necessary signals (alerts) to sales staff. “How do we prevent out of stock situations?” We are trying to strengthen the attention of the field person in specific details. A signal of some kind would enhance a person’s attention. A larger amount of data on sales and balances is taken, the more often a product is sold, the more interesting the statistics. We took the statistics, built a trend, then, at some point, the statistics "breaks down", there are no sales. Then the question arises, either the product from the shelf disappeared, or it ended at the outlet, and then something needs to be done with this - what to do: a signal appears with which you need to further work out. This signal can be reached in different ways, based on statistics or visual observation. Now there are already many Image Recognition solutions, for example, we at OPEN Group made a camera that travels along the rail on the ceiling and photographs a shelf in the trading floor - the best solution for sports goods or, for example, perfumes.
Further, these photo data are recognized and brought to analytics and then output to specific signals. Tasks for merchandisers are set through messengers, applications. For example, the Wodo application solves this problem. The app provides control of the assortment of goods on the shelves in retail outlets, compliance with the display rules, the relevance of price tags and window dressing in retail outlets, helping to rule out the Out Of Stock situation,“ said Pavel Reshetnikov.
The managing partner of TechAudit, the technological partner of VkusVill network, Igor Lakeev, told the participants about the experience of selecting and implementing innovative solutions for the company. He also shared with the audience exciting facts about the organization of VkusVill, the system for introducing new projects, and the features of running a fast-growing network. The company pays most attention to working with customer reviews, their development, and making changes to the range and quality of services based on feedback. They introduce and continuously improve specialised digital solutions to work with reviews more effectively, convenient for both the consumer and the retailer. According to Igor Lakeev, the company is currently engaged in the selection of new technological solutions at Startupbootcamp website, an accelerator for startups, to launch a series of pilots.
Mikhail Waldner, Head of Analysis and Efficiency of the Retail Space at Nielsen, spoke about the features of the effectiveness of the retail space and the company's research in this area.
"Now new technologies are emerging, for example, electronic document management or auto-order, which make business processes in retail more efficient, but do not exclude manual intervention. At the same time, consumers are becoming different, they know what expiration dates are and how to search for the right product on the shelf, they have applications, tools and technologies to find out where, when and what will be sold and at what price, they can leave feedback about a particular store online. Therefore, the approach to sales has changed. Now only those tools work that develop sales from the outlet. Currently, most players are betting on merchandising, equipment, calculating the range in such a way as to increase sales from a particular store. And many retailers already plan not only to segment the approach to their stores, based on the size of the retail space and the amount of equipment, but they also begin to focus on customers. They come to the understanding that the assortment should change two to three times a week, taking into account factors such as seasonality, geographical location, the proximity of highways, which requires a different assortment on certain days of the week,” he said. “Now there are fewer opportunities in a simple way, through a promo, to achieve results: statistically, 6 out of 10 promos do not pay off economically. The buyer makes more and more decisions directly near the shelf. Therefore, it is important to attract consumer attention. But, according to our research, despite the fears of retailers, people use technology, they take their time, but they do not distract them from the dynamic interaction with the shelf in the cash zone,” he added.
After the talks, the speakers answered the questions of the audience, after which the participants in the business breakfast continued business communication and networking in a free format.
