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Are you Shaping the Future or keeping-up with the Trends?

Writer's picture: Dominique TourleDominique Tourle

Updated: Feb 6




The Point of Purchase (POP) is important to shoppers, retailers and suppliers.
The Point of Purchase (POP) is important to shoppers, retailers and suppliers.


Why you need a Point of Purchase Vision

In the value-hungry landscape of today, the Point of Purchase (POP) is more crucial than ever for driving conversion of planned purchases as well as influencing trade-up and incremental buys. Further, as consumer preferences evolve and technology advances, FMCG suppliers and retailers must also evolve to satisfy shoppers and capture spend.


What common challenges unite suppliers and retailers?

Consumer Preferences: Consumers are increasingly health-conscious, environmentally aware, time-strapped and digitally savvy. Their store choices and purchasing habits reflect a desire for convenience and efficiency, as well as trust in retailer transparency and sustainability.

Increased Competition: The rise of eCommerce, including direct-to-consumer and marketplace models is changing the face of FMCG for shoppers and compels traditional channels to rethink how they remain both relevant and competitive.

Supply Chain Disruptions: Recent global events have exposed vulnerabilities in supply chains, highlighting the need for agile responses and innovative solutions.

How can we envision the Future?


To navigate these challenges, suppliers and retailers must cultivate a clear future vision for their categories, taking into consideration:

  1. Data-Driven Insights: Harness research and analytics to identify and predict future consumer needs and behaviours. Then by understanding which behaviours can be influenced at the POP for category growth, suppliers can better partner with retailers to transform the shopping environment - working innovation and instore levers harder, to stimulate demand and better satisfy shoppers.


  2. Omnichannel Experiences: Identifying the roles of each online and instore channels for the category enables suppliers and retailers to work together to create and connect seamless experiences that attract more shoppers and move them through the conversion funnel.


  3. Sustainability Initiatives: Future POP strategies should incorporate sustainable practices to reflect consumer values - from eco-friendly packaging, through transparent sourcing to reduced carbon footprint and beyond.



How does a Vision become Reality?


Some POP strategies can be implemented quickly for immediate benefit, whilst others have longer lead-times. In particular, operational considerations can slow the pace of change at the POP. Creating change is easiest when stakeholders are aligned on both the immediate and longer-term strategic direction. This enables retailers and suppliers to move forward together realising the quick-wins possible today, whilst confidently investing in what is needed to be ready tomorrow – each knowing the other’s work will drive joint value at execution.


Here are our top tips to alignment:


  1. Plan Collaboratively: Engage early in the development process. Share insights and co-create category strategies that benefit both parties. Identify how shoppers are behaving in the category today, where it's working well and where pain-points exist.


  2. Tailor Execution Strategies: Customise the vision to the retailer's priorities: Consider how execution levers such as range, space, layout, price, promotion, shelf theatre and shopper marketing could be utilised to enhance key product visibility and influence shopper behaviour. Engage broadly to socialise goals, understand needs and build robust plans.


  3. Integrate Technology: Invest in technologies that remove pain-points or enhance the shopping experience, such as interactive displays or mobile apps to engage and provide information.


  4. Test & Learn Trials: Not only are some changes harder to make than others, some are harder to undo. Explore riskier concepts in select stores to test the strategy, executional watchouts and to gather data for refinement or validation before a broader rollout.


Shape the Future, don't be Shaped by It


Both retailers and suppliers benefit from a POP Vision that goes beyond responding to current trends, anticipating and preparing for the future.


Good suppliers pro-actively develop, share and align on a vision for their categories, grounded in data-driven insight and innovative solutions. They collaborate with retailers to cascade their vision into shopper experiences that deliver category growth today and set-up the POP for sustainable ongoing growth into the future.


Are you ready to lead the change?


Have you shared your thoughts on the future of POP with your retailers yet?


If you’re unsure how to best utilise your research, create a vision, customise or align strategies with a retailer, Real World Marketing can help. Let’s shape the next chapter of your category together.

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