Elevating Visual Merchandising Compliance for a Leading Retail Chain

A renowned retail chain operating nationwide faced a critical challenge – maintaining consistent visual merchandising (VM) standards across their diverse network of company-owned and franchise locations.

The brand struggled to ensure that planned VM changes were accurately implemented, resulting in discrepancies in brand presentation and inconsistent customer experiences.

The Challenge

Understanding the Pain Points

To address the complex issue, our team engaged in thorough conversations with store teams, regional managers and other stakeholders. These interactions yielded valuable insights into the root causes of the challenge.

• Store Teams: Late deliveries and damaged items were significant sources of frustration, hindering the seamless execution of VM changes.
• Regional Managers: The delay in obtaining an accurate view of compliance across regions was a major obstacle to effective oversight.
• Other Stakeholders: Accurate confirmation of compliance for vendor assurance was a key requirement

Solution

Armed with a comprehensive understanding of the issues, our team designed a multifaceted solution to tackle the challenges head-on.

1. Digital Task Lists
   A game-changing approach emerged – digital task lists for task assignment. Each store received a standardised checklist of tasks, ensuring a consistent approach to VM changes
2. Confirmation Mechanism
   A confirmation step was integrated into the process. Stores were required to confirm the completion of VM changes. To further enhance this, the ability to require stores to upload photos of completed VM was implemented. This introduced immediate, accurate and verifiable visibility into the status of executed changes
3. Issue Reporting
   This feature allowed stores to report any challenges faced during VM changes in real time. This enabled rapid issue resolution and provided regional managers with immediate insight into any blockages
4. Comprehensive Reporting
   An advanced reporting system was developed to collect data and insights. This information was harnessed to enhance operational efficiency and learning

Results

The implementation of our solutions yielded transformative results across our clients chain.

• Accurate Execution: Digital task lists and the confirmation mechanism led to a significant improvement in the precise execution of VM changes across all locations
• Issue Resolution: The issue reporting feature empowered stores to report challenges as they occurred, leading to swift problem-solving and minimal disruption to brand presentation
• Efficient Communication: Real-time visibility for regional managers and other stakeholders enabled proactive issue management, vendor assurance and more effective communication with stores
• Operational Improvement: The comprehensive reporting system empowered the retailer to continuously learn and enhance operational efficiency