Retail Audits

Retail Audit Services

Customer Impact is a third-party retail service company. We are the premier provider of full-service, nationwide retail audit support.

Our goal is to keep your products and displays looking their best.

Whether it’s ongoing brand improvement or a one-time project, our retail audit services provide flexibility and support to help you drive sales at retail.

Our people, experience, and resources allow us to efficiently service your products at the point of sale.

Retail Field Team

Our nationwide team of over 100,000 field representatives provides the resources needed to gather key insights about your stores or products.

  • National coverage, including metro Canada
  • Individually vetted for each specific project
  • 98% average completion rating

Technology

We partner with leading technology platforms to provide you retail data reporting with the flexibility and precision that your company deserves.

  • Mobile Data Collection
  • Real-time Results
  • Custom Reporting Dashboard
  • Export to Salesforce
  • Geo-stamped to verify time and location

Retail Audit Service Information

We offer a wide array of retail services ideal for differing industry needs, preferences, and budget.

Our customizable retail service plans ensure comprehensive results and accurate perspectives on your retail performance and presentation.

The types of information gathered during a Retail Audit often relate to:

  • In-store displays
  • Planogram compliance
  • Shelf presence
  • Pricing
  • Promotional materials
  • Physical location of your product
  • Product stock levels

Retail Audits are also conducted to monitor Competitor Activity in regards to placement, pricing, and promotions.

More specifically, these include:

  • Price Tracking
  • Promotions
  • Signage
  • Shelf Position/Adjacencies
  • Number of Facings
  • New Product Availability

Overall, the information gathered provides a much-needed guide when making decisions about sales strategy. brand identity, and product positioning.

Retail Audits

What is a Retail Audit?

Retail Audits are a crucial sales and forecasting tool used to maintain in-store product presentation. Brands rely on the data points and information gathered to make informed decisions about their retail strategy, product positioning, and promotional efforts. A retail audit is akin to a wellness check for brands in the marketplace.

Companies conduct retail audits to collect on-the-ground store data, identify barriers to growth, optimize customer experience, and maximize sales and market share.

The retail audit process involves assessing the health of retail locations by collecting various informational aspects like out-of-stock items, visual merchandising, planogram compliance, and more. This process provides valuable insights into a brand’s performance in-store.

How does the retail audit process work?

The retail audit process involves articulating goals, designing audit criteria, gathering data and photos, and analyzing the findings to make informed decisions about store operations.

Retail audits come in various types, such as daily store opening/closing audits, merchandising audits, performance audits, customer experience audits, marketing campaign audits, and competitor analysis audits.

The core of the retail audit process is gathering in-store data that answers specific questions.

The entire process starts with defining these questions.

Location List
How many locations will be included in the project?
Are these urban, rural, or both?
Do some locations take priority over others in the overall project timeline?

Data Scope
What information needs to be gathered at each location?
Is there a merchandising element to the project?

Data Review
Who is the point-of-contact to oversee the project?
Define the standards and communication expectations when monitoring the project.

Every company faces unique challenges, which is why every retail audit project will include specialized planning.

In general, a foundational retail audit process follows these steps:

  1. Define your goals
  2. Plan your criteria
  3. Gather in-store data
  4. Review results
  5. Take action
  6. Monitor activity
  7. Repeat
Retail Audit Process

Why do companies need retail audit services?

Retail audits help in analyzing product placement, inventory levels, planogram compliance, and competitive information to make agile decisions based on consumer feedback. These audits also examine compliance with pricing, promotional agreements, and measure the success of marketing campaigns.

Companies need retail audit services for various reasons, including:

Maintaining Strong Shelf Presence
Retail audits help identify gaps in operations, provide a unified view of retail engines, and ensure brand standards are executed uniformly.

Checking Key Performance Indicators
Retail audits aid in assessing key performance indicators related to retail strategy, allowing businesses to make informed decisions.

Maximizing Sales & Market Share
Real-time store audit data offers insights into planograms, visual merchandising, and consumer behavior — optimizing sell-through and market share growth.

Enhancing Store Compliance
Retail audits ensure compliance with product placement, pricing, and promotional agreements — helping measure the success of marketing campaigns and SKU arrangements.

Optimizing Customer Experience
Retail audits analyze shoppers’ experiences with products and in-store promotions by identifying areas for improvement.

Ensuring Brand Consistency
Retail audits help companies assess brand guideline adherence across locations, confirming consistent brand identity and standards.

How can retail audit services help companies?

Retail Audits play a crucial role in the retail industry by providing valuable insights into various aspects on store operations. These audits help in maximizing sales, increasing market share, confirming compliance with merchandising requirements, and optimizing the customer experience in-store.

By optimizing the customer experience through retail audits, brands can enhance shopper satisfaction and loyalty. Retail audits are crucial for CPG brands to ensure correct execution in retail operations, maintain brand visibility in stores, and avoid costly mistakes that could lead to lost sales. They provide insights into in-store conditions, help control operations, and improve the customer’s shopping experience.

Here’s how retail audits help companies:

Maximize Sales and Market Share
Retail audits provide real-time data that allows businesses to make quick adjustments to planograms, merchandising, and self locations based on consumer feedback. This data empowers teams to make agile decisions and optimize sell-through, leading to an expansion of market share.

Ensure Retail Compliance
By examining retail compliance with placement, pricing, and promotional agreements — retail audits help businesses measure the success or failure of specific campaigns, SKU arrangements, and marketing efforts. Compliance ensures that brands and retailers can effectively evaluate the outcomes of their strategies.

Optimize Customer Experience
Retail audits help brands measure and monitor retail success by evaluating the shopper’s experience with their products in-store. They allow businesses to identify factors like product availability, store employee helpfulness, stock levels, and more — which are crucial for enhancing customer experience.

What are some common issues companies experience when conducting a retail audit?

Conducting retail audits with clear objectives, proper instructions for auditing teams, utilizing modern technology, and creating checklists are best practices to ensure effective retail audit implementation.

Common issues companies experience when conducting a retail audit include:

Inadequate Focus
Retail audits can become time-consuming and ineffective if they are too broad, making it challenging to address key problems efficiently.

Lack of Documentation
Failing to document retail audits properly can skew results and reduce the benefits received. Properly labeling store fixtures, inventory, and documenting the findings with detailed notes and photographs is crucial.

Neglecting Follow-Up
Not following up on action items identified during retail audits can render the audit ineffective. It is essential to promptly address each issue, assign tasks, purchase needed items, and track progress to ensure improvements are implemented.

Inventory Management Challenges
Poor inventory practices, such as overstocking or stock-outs, can lead to capital drain, inefficiencies, and loss of competitive edge. Conducting inventory audits, investing in sales forecasting tools, and using technology for inventory management are vital solutions.

Customer Experience Oversight
While many audits focus on metrics like sales and inventory levels, neglecting customer experience aspects like store layout, signage, and service can provide a skewed understanding of a retail operation’s health.

Additional Services

We are the go-to resource for all of your in-store Retail Merchandising needs.

Fulfillment services ensure your materials are organized and shipped directly from our headquarters to our field team.

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