Which products are the most profitable on a DIY shelf?
Those which are tactically used within a strategy designed to obtain maximum profitability using proper rotation.
In theory, it’s undeniable: Let’s hit targets using tactics and strategy.
Now, let’s put the theory into practice.
Let’s stand in the aisles, between the shelves and end displays; let’s take a look at the heights at which the products meet the eyes of the customer; the way the light hits the scene and every individual setting within it; the emotional resources used to capture the attention of the public and their potential interest in one or several specific items or the way to organise the products to suit the customer who is expected to arrive.
Let’s analyse the reality to find the answer and know where to place a product to make it more profitable in a DIY store.
To do so, it is as important to know the consumers as it is to design a strategy for organising the spaces in the commercial establishments.
The first thing is something you can’t live without, a hyperloop, a constantly changing ultrasonic rocket.
Until very recently, extensive experience in the sector turned sales professionals into consumer gurus. The observation of habits, the establishment of seasons, the access to products, all of this had the capacity to establish a certainly predictable rhythm when designing shelf profitability strategies.
Not any more. That’s all changed.
Customers have changed and the key to understanding this change is understanding that they will not stop changing.
Habits, largely dictated by information and access to new technologies, have a vertigo-esque dynamic.
But, and it is convenient not to forget this “but”, there are things that do not change no matter how many advances are made: the offers that a client “can’t pass up”, the unconditional monitoring of a brand’s latest products and last but not least, the idea of “because I deserve it”.
Three winning points that should be kept in mind in the shelving strategy.
What are the most detectable changes in consumer behaviour?
For now, it would be good to point out that they want personalised customer service, if they are going to go to a physical store instead of making a purchase on the Internet, it has to be worth it. In addition, the products they purchase must be sustainable and demonstrate this with labelling that provides information on, for example, the origin of the product, the company’s waste management and the recyclability of the packaging.
So, the customers are already here, in your shop.
How do you show them what they want to buy and have them buy it as well as showing them what they neither seek nor expect to find but end up taking with them? Tactical and strategic shelving, that’s how. Let’s go over the main points.
Distribution of products using zones:
1.- Hot zone, designed for products that appeal to quality and brand lovers, leaving room for other products that are not on the customer’s list but that end up being bought on impulse.
2.- Warm zone, planned for family shopping, specifically for families who enjoy DIY and have unclear goals but, at the same time, the time needed to focus on them. This space is perfect for offering wider and deeper ranges.
3.- Cold zone, supplied with offers and new products, this zone wins if it is strategically located so that its accessibility implies a walk around the store. This is the ideal zone for planned purchases and high rotation products.
This predictable, theoretical part needs the vital complement of being put into practice to achieve success in sales. We’re talking about the part where the protagonist seems to be the client. In fact, it is absolutely necessary for him or her to believe that this is the case, that they make all the decisions, after all, they are only being helped a little bit by a type of lighting or the placement of a product at a certain level but the ultimate decision is always theirs.
Designing a strategy for product placement on shelves based on height criteria, whether above the head, at eye level, at hand level or at a lower level, is an invaluable asset and, if with the right light to accompany it, sales are multiplied.
The customer wants to see what they are buying and the seller is eager for them to find it.
Simple.
And how do they have to find it?
Well, the answer to that question isn’t so simple.
Uniformity of tastes and criteria is not very common given the current situation. It would be better to broaden product ranges and be generous with displays, taking into account that current measures allow greater control over the customers’ route and how they behave.
But it will also convey a message of certain predictable artificiality, leaving them without options such as those which are only available by breaking the current rules: nothing drastic, just a small movement which allows the customer to have more products in sight and more purchase options.
It is clear that it is a question of balance and all factors must be “in the mix”, having that complicity that leads to a good sales exercise: personalised customer service without being overwhelming; products placed at the right height, with the right lighting and with the necessary touch of “informal order” that makes the customer feel comfortable and makes them want to stay.
Because one thing leads to another and that customer who came up with the idea of buying some decorative hardware to renew a bedside table, goes home with the latest collection of hardware to renew all the furniture in the kitchen and already has his eye on more hardware he saw for the bathroom.
The customer saw them by chance and the shop assistant told them that in a week they would receive them in bronze, that those ones seemed to fit better with the rest of the bathroom decoration and that, by the way, what good taste they have in flooring
That said, one thing leads to another.
