Efficient fulfillment of your in-store point-of-purchase (POP) programs is critical to a campaign’s success. However, assuring that the right materials are delivered to the right location at the right time is a real challenge for many retail brands today. For example, let’s say that the company you work for is a fashion retail chain with 1,500 retail locations in the USA and Canada. You’ve got 1,000 flagship stores with many different configurations: some are located in indoor malls, some are in strip centers, and still others are freestanding locations. You also operate 500 specialty boutiques divided under a few different brand identities.
In this scenario you run a new in-store POP campaign each month and each store needs marketing collateral to reinforce the promotion and drive sales at each location. Each promotion includes a total of 30 components, ranging from displays to window clings, posters, banners and counter mats. In total, you spend up to $5 million per year on POP and fulfillment.
In the past, you’ve determined your needs for each POP Kit is based on some basic assumptions:
mall stores = 30 components
strip stores = 20 components
freestanding locations = 25 components
boutiques = 15 components
When the artwork is ready, you place orders for each item based on your formula. All of the items are sent to your warehouse, where they are kitted according to the formulas above. The kits are sent to the stores using your internal distribution. Store managers receive the kits and are responsible for placing the campaign components in each store. Sounds simple, right?
Except it’s not. You’ve got the nagging suspicion that things could be run more efficiently. You know that each store is different and that some might only really need 17 of the 20 components you’re sending them, and you regularly hear that the wrong materials have gone to the wrong locations. According to a study titled “Promotion Commotion” by the CMO Council’s Marketing Supply Chain Institute, up to 50% of retail marketing consumables are deemed as waste. The costs are piling up, not to mention the time spent sorting through tedious spreadsheets to manage these complex programs. There has to be a better way, right?
What If Every Store Got Only Exactly What They Need?
If you had the time and resources you’d determine the exact needs of every store location. You could order the exact amount you’d need of each POP component and eliminate the waste. To do that, you’d need to survey each location to generate a unique store profile. For example: Store A has 5 windows and Store B has just 2. This would add a lot of complexity to your fulfillment operation. Now instead of 4 POP kit types, you could potentially have 1,500. You’d have way more exceptions than rules.
How Could KDM POP Solutions Group Solve These Store Profiling Problems?
KDM can work with your team to identify the needs of each store location. Our INTELLITRAK™ online ordering platform allows us to capture the unique profile of each store location for you and determine which campaign components they’ll need. KDM uses this data to create a campaign roll-up based on the store profiles, identifying the exact quantity of each item, and which version, that will need to be produced. KDM can print all of the components (equipped with 25 printing presses covering 5 print methods), package each unique kit, and fulfill them all directly from our manufacturing facility, conveniently located in the Midwest, where we are able to reach 54% of the US population in one day via ground shipping.
KDM’s Fulfillment division handles these types of operations each and every day. It’s their core competency and they’ve reduced it to practice. Our technology allows us to ensure that only the right items are ordered, produced, and sent to each location. We’ve helped many retail brands with exactly these types of challenges shave the cost of producing and delivering their POP marketing campaigns by 15-20% or more.