Enhance Your Sales Audit Procedures for Businesses

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foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you for joining us here on tempforce.com I want to share it again today with you regarding audits store audits I want to go over the different aspects of store Audits and how important they are to Growing your business and maintaining the business once you you've developed it [Music] store audits are a lot more than just grabbing a retail price or looking at the pricing it is a source of information a lot of people think Tim why do I need to do store audits I've got computer reports I've got you know all these spreadsheets I got information from the field I've got Nielsen reports but a lot of those really are only providing four basic things on for the retailer they're going to provide for the retailer they're going to provide you obviously it'll be the description of your item but for your item they're only going to tell you units sold so units retail pricing timing and they're going to tell you if there's any marketing present for that it's not going to provide you the detailed information and the opportunity for you to leverage the information that you can find at retail by visiting stores I mean actually driving to physical stores and getting the information there it's so important that you do retail audits go in and check it it's it's the basis of everything from management to Growing the business to maintaining the business and uh being aware is a very good source of information also it is expensive and it takes your time it's not expensive in that you're doing anything other than just you're walking traveling and walking into and grabbing the information in store one of the things there's lots of things that I do it depends on the opportunity what I'm doing I'll identify myself to store personnel to the store manager let them know I'm checking on my set sometimes if I'm doing something I really don't want to want to I want to go unnoticed a trick that I've learned is to push a buggy around you become invisible to store personnel when you have a buggy in front of you just just to share that with you but it allows you to analyze market conditions you're going to look for problems and causes it's going to provide you uh information on retail execution what's happening are you on the Shelf one of the things for instance a report will tell you there's no sales in your stores but really you have to visit the store to find out is it in the back room is there not space for it is the set smaller is there some reason that it's not just an idea on the retail execution There's an opportunity for communications you can see how other people are communicating how what's hap happening on the tags what's what type of signage is is there what is uh what's available to you all shelf is what about secondary locations within the store new retail opportunities you can only get those from going to the physical store itself your frequency of coverage you're going to be able to check on how often your distributor and or sales people Etc visit the store you can look at rotation the health of the product you're also going to be looking for competitive information so what is happening with your competitors in the set and then you want to own any kind of follow-up so if you're rolling out a new item you're looking at changes in the set you're going to always need to visit the stores to understand and follow up on any of the activity that you're expecting to happen that you're planning to happen that that your team or distributors or the market that folks are going to do on your category and you can look at sales as well you can see what's selling what's not selling if you you visit regularly and at certain times of the week you can understand what's going on one of the tricks there as far as going to retail and checking is I like to go on Sunday evenings or at times when there's likely not been a the set hasn't been necessarily worked and the product hasn't been put up so when you do go into a store what is it that we're looking for so when I go into the store I'm looking for a group of items one I'm gonna look for distribution how many items I have in the store are they on the shelf or are they located on the Shelf I want to look at the same for the competitors I want to look at the inventory how much inventory do I have and how am I selling how is everyone else in the category selling what are what are the best sellers and what's moving where are the big holes are there any holes am I out of stock on anything that's one of the keys and so it allows you to begin the process if I am out of stock what do I need to do to fix that what's happening is it a store issue store ordering issue is a tag issue is it a UPC issue are there some other issues communication issues that are happening for that is it a distributor issue is it an item in the warehouse is it a shipping issue from your part from from your Warehouse you may not be you may be traveling around building your business not at your home Warehouse or at one of your feeder warehouses that are going to take care of that part of the country it's going to be an air a way for you to begin the process like hey we have an issue here what's going on if this happens across several stores which you should be visiting more than one store it's going to provide you feedback data that you can work through and understand if it's an inventory issue within your own business you should already know that but it's a way to give you a check and balances there you're going to check the shelving how much space do you have how much space do the competitors have or are you in line is does it make sense should you have more shelf space it's something to look at are you going to be more productive giving that shelf space I also want to look at pricing where is the pricing fall in the category where do I fall within the category on pricing am I bringing value compared to the retail price points what is the merchandising that's happening what are the competitive merchandises so what is all the merchandising occurring in the category in the department what is the merchandising that's happening in the store what opportunities are there off shelf I just mentioned earlier so I want to look for those I want to see what the competitors are doing I want to be watching what their merchandising tactics are and what's happening in store along with any if you've got any type of a perishable product obviously stock rotation you want to be aware of that and ensure that your product's doing well yeah I hope these these uh these little bullet points help I know that this is one of the key areas that many people Miss they don't really know what to look for if you never kind of walk through the process or no one's guided you through this it's it's just imperative that you do your retail audits so that you understand what's happening in store that's where your your business growth is uh going to happen that's how you're going to actually get new items and grow your overall business by taking care of the business you have also it's going to help you all of this is going to help you if you've never been in a store before you have to visit a store you have to do retail audits one of the rules is you never call on a retailer having never visited the retail set and just bring in a great product they want to understand how you're going to help them to be successful the retail set you need to understand their set to do that anyway hope this helps I'd love to learn about your product and what you're bringing to retail and your growth plans jump on my calendar at timformsmarkets.com thanks a lot and have a great day [Music] foreign [Music]