284. Why Great Brands Still Lose Sales at the Shelf

0:00Welcome to day 12, how to make it easier for shoppers to buy your brand. If a shopper can't find your product, they can't buy your product. It doesn't matter how powerful your story is, how compelling your why is, or how aligned your mission is with your customer's values. If your product isn't easy to find, understand and purchase, everything else falls apart. Today we're going to talk about how to remove friction from the buying journey, how to help your customer succeed at shelf, and how to help retailers deliver the seamless and frictionless shopping experience their customers crave. because you make it easy for shoppers to find your brand.

0:35You don't just increase sales, you build trust, loyalty, and repeat business. Why storytelling must lead to shelf clarity. You've spent the last several episodes learning how to communicate your why, understanding your customer, and telling your story that resonates. Now we'll take the next step. Storytelling must guide your merchandising and your go-to-market strategy. Think of your storytelling as the emotional connection Think of your merchandising as a practical application. Emotion gives shoppers a reason to care. Clarity gives them a reason to buy. Your job is to connect the two. Let's start with the most powerful tool you have.

1:16Start with the market basket, then work backwards. Everything begins with the market basket. The sum total of what they purchase on each retail visit. Ask yourself, what does my shopper buy alongside my product? what complementary products appear in the same basket? What does that reveal about their buying mission? What does that tell me about how they shop? Once you understand your customer's shopping ecosystem, you can work backwards to map out exactly how to support that journey at retail. For example, if your product is gluten-free granola, the market basket might include plant-based yogurt, berries, organic dairy, functional beverages, and clean-label snacks.

1:56Now your merchandising story becomes clear. You want to be near complimentary products, be merchandised at eye level, show up in secondary placements, be cross promoted with adjacent categories, help shoppers build a basket that solves their need states. This is how you transform your brand from a nice to have to essential part of your customer shopping mission. Identify the shoppers need states. Understanding the need state is critical. A need state answers what problem is the shopper trying to solve right now. Some examples are cold and flu, wellness products, broth, teas, and soup. Post-workout, hydration, protein recovery.

2:35Plant-based lifestyle, dairy alternatives, meat alternatives, grains. When you understand the need state, you can position your product correctly. Suggest complimentary items. Educate retailers on optimal merchandising. Help shoppers complete their mission easily. Retailers love brands that help them simplifying the shopper journey. Retailers don't sell products, they sell real estate. This is one of the most important lessons you'll ever learn about retail. Retailers don't sell food, they sell space. A tiny sliver of shelf just a few inches wide represents rentable real estate, revenue potential, shopper value, and opportunity cost.

3:12Retailers want to maximize their return on every inch. When your brand drives bigger baskets, attracts high-value shoppers, encourages cross-category sales, brings people back to the store and reduces shopper friction, you become far more valuable to the retailer. This is how you earn a better placement, more facings, stronger support, and increased distribution. Turn insights into a story retailers care about. When presenting your brand to a retailer, shift from product-focused selling to shopper-focused storytelling. For example, instead of saying, we're gluten-free granola made of clean ingredients, say, our shoppers spend twice as much per trip, buy premium dairy products, shop produce more frequently, and choose stores that support their lifestyle.

3:58When she buys our granola, her basket increases by 27%. We help you attract and retain high-value shoppers. That's a story retailers understand. That's a story retailers lean into. That's a story retailers can act on. Trailer Breadcrumbs, how to make your brand easy to find. Think of your customer's path through the store. Now imagine leaving breadcrumbs that guide them directly to your product. Your job is to remove confusion at every point. Here's how. Number one, begin at the checkout lane and reverse engineer the journey. What brought them into the store? What else will they buy? What aisles will they travel through?

4:40Number two, identify exact merchandising placement. Eye level, end cap with complimentary products. secondary location and high traffic zone. Number three, build KPIs that define perfect execution. Your broker, distributor, or sales reps should have a bulletproof checklist, including facing expectations, shelf position, adjacent products, secondary placement opportunities, pricing and promo alignment, in-store education elements like signs, tags, recipes, etc. Number four, optimize packaging and messaging for quick recognition your packaging should act like a billboard at shelf number five make omni channel seamless if shoppers look for your brand online can they find it quickly are you easy to order do you appear in related product recommendations your brand should be impossible to miss anywhere customers shop this includes your search on retailers apps and in their online store.

5:40Most brands skip this. A brand I recently did a project for had a health and wellness item. It was merchandised correctly in the store, but when you did a search for health and wellness items online, dog food appeared. Take the shopper's journey everywhere your products are sold. I bet that you find a lot of opportunities to make that journey easier for them. Never force shoppers to work hard. Confusion kills brands. Friction kills sales, poor merchandising kills momentum. Your job is to remove confusion, reduce friction, increase clarity, simplifying the shopper journey. Help retailers merchandise your brand correctly.

6:18When shoppers feel supported, they buy. When shoppers feel confident, they return. When shoppers feel seen, they evangelize. Day 12 action item. Map your shoppers buying journey. Today, complete the following exercise. One, identify your top five complimentary products. What else is in your customer's shopper basket? Number two, map the path your shoppers take through a store. Where do they start? Where do they end? What detours do they take? Number three, define ideal merchandising locations. Primary location, secondary placements, cross-merchandising opportunities. Number four, write three KPIs that define perfect retail shelf execution.

7:01These become your non-negotiable guardrails. Number five, turn this into a one-page merchandising story for retailers. This is how you help retailers win. This is how you help make your brand easy to buy. This is how you increase velocity and loyalty at the same time. In closing, make your brand easy to buy and easy to love. When you eliminate confusion and friction, customers find your products faster. They buy more of them. They build bigger baskets. They develop deeper loyalty. Retailers support more strategically. Build this into a story that resonates with retailers. Include insights that set you apart from other brands.

7:41Tell a story that speaks their language and aligns with their objectives. Tomorrow in episode 285, we'll talk about how to merchandise your brand like a category leader, including how to build schematics, optimize resets, and influence buyer decisions. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Share this with a founder who's stuck focusing solely on velocity and download the episode's free guide to go deeper into these strategies. Make your brand easy to find. Make it easy to buy. Make it impossible to overlook. For additional inspiration, listen and follow podcast episodes. Episode 68, Proven strategies to 2X your loyal shopper easily.

8:22Sustainable sales growth requires a thoughtful strategy and a commitment to do better than other brands. Like the tortoise and the hare, the small strategic incremental steps can add up to a huge win. And then listen to episode 104, the essential new item checklist for launching products. New product innovation is a life brought of every brand. New products feel sustainable growth, attract shoppers and increase brand awareness. Know the critical steps to get your products and more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers. In this episode, I share a story about someone who's looking to help her friend's brand grow.

8:54The product was mismerchandised. Because it was mismerchandised, all the work the brand had done to drive traffic into the store was wasted. First impressions matter. Shoppers were left frustrated. They couldn't find the brand. The retailers frustrated. They lost sales and new shoppers. The brand was frustrated. Now they need to re-merchandise the item. They lost a lot of sales waiting for this to happen. Then listen to episode 144, Creative Disruptive Retail Strategies to Win Customers. Mike Fulgert, he was Choice Market. Explore innovative and creative disruptive retail strategies that put shoppers' desires at the forefront of retail success.

9:32Choice Markets is a hybrid grocery, convenience, and fast casual store. It was founded by Mike and inspired by his experience in Barcelona and his desire to innovate in the convenience store space. A store designed to cater to urban consumers seeking healthy high-quality products aims to fill the gap left by traditional convenience stores that lack innovation. Shoppers want what they want and any retailer that can make that their primary focus will win the retail game. Now they are in organic, fast casual dining, etc. Tip of the day, confusion pushes shoppers away. The shopper journey needs to be simple and straightforward.

10:07help lead shoppers to the resolution of their problem and you will win them for life. Thank you for listening. This episode has an accompanied video with illustrations and additional information I can't share in an audio podcast. You can watch it at retailsolve.com slash 30-day challenge. You can get the show notes for this episode by going to retailsolve.com slash session 284. Tomorrow's episode is use clarity and consistency to amplify your brand. This episode will build our today's conversation. Want more sales? How to profitably scale a food business today, tomorrow, and beyond. Here's this week's free downloadable guide.

10:46The 30-Day to Prosperity Workbook is a companion to the 30-Day Challenge. This retail-solve blueprint will teach you what you need to know to confidently grow and scale your brand, build a connected community of loyal evangelists, and multiply your brand's impact, sales, and profits. Every slight improvement means more runway for sales growth, higher brand evaluations, better terms when negotiating with investors, fuel for more innovation, greater support for mission-based causes, and much more. Thanks for joining us today. Please reach out and share your most pressing questions, and I'll do my best to get you the answers that you need on future episodes, including expert advice from CEOs and industry thought leaders.

11:23Comment, leave your questions, and get this week's free downloadable guide and the show notes at retailsolve.com slash session 284.