Every retailer faces challenges: increased competition, falling sales, the need to modernise… So how can you ensure that your point of sale is optimised for growth? The optimisation study is a comprehensive solution. It enables you to carry out an in-depth analysis of your business, identify opportunities for growth and implement practical strategies.

Whether you’re struggling or expanding, this approach can transform your business and boost your sales and profitability.

---

 

What problems can you solve thanks to an optimisation study?

The optimisation study is a key tool for tackling 2 types of problem:

1/ Your point of sale is experiencing difficulties:

• sales are not meeting your expectations or are decreasing;
• you are affected by the arrival of a competitor and you want to react appropriately.

2/ You want to support growth:

• You are getting ready to give your store a makeover or expand it, and you need to know how to do it in the most optimal way: how many square metres to increase the shop’s surface area, which departments to enlarge, which to add or remove, etc.?
• You are simply looking for ways to increase your sales and turnover: given my catchment area and my competitors, how much turnover can I achieve if I optimise everything in my shop, and what concrete actions should I take to achieve it?

What is a point of sale optimisation study? 

This is an objective, external study that you entrust to an independent consultancy firm to analyse the situation of your point of sale from various angles. As a retailer, you don’t necessarily have access to all the data you need to make the right decisions, and you are caught up in the day-to-day running of your business. This external study can provide you with the information you need to make better decisions about the layout of your retail space and the range of products you want to stock.
 

The study consists in 3 stages:

• Firstly, we look at sales from a statistical point of view, to see how the different product categories work and how their sales evolve over time. This allows you to see whether you need, for example, to expand certain departments that have potential and reduce others that are not performing as well.
• Next, we analyse micro-economic situation of your point of sales in the field and based on data: who are your competitors, what do they offer, what is the state of the market, etc. From this, we determine the ways in which you can differentiate yourself to be more attractive to new customers. For example, if local customers are interested in a product category that your competitors don’t offer, you have a card to play.
• Finally, we can supplement these numerical analyses with qualitative analyses linked to the buying behaviour of local consumers (your regular and occasional customers, but also non-customers). This will enable you to understand why they shop in your store… or why they don’t! You can then make changes that will encourage them to come and return to you rather than to your competitor.

The study will also provide you with very concrete recommendations and an action plan to be implemented in the short, medium and long term. For example, you could: 

• Intensify and adapt advertising in the 10 districts where your market share is too low to increase your shop’s sales by 7.9%.
• Increase the surface area of your shop by 200 m² net to develop a bakery and a frozen food department, which are either not present or very unattractive in your competitors’ stores, according to the customers surveyed. These 2 new departments will generate sales growth of 17%. 

How does an optimisation study work?

It all starts with an analysis of your needs, to determine the methodology to be adopted. Depending on your objectives and the answers you want, the study can be divided into two parts. 

A micro-economic / geomarketing analysis

This part concerns everything to do with your sales outlet at ground level.
It will define your actual customer catchment area and analyse the resident population and its characteristics, your potential customers, as well as details of local demand and competition.

A qualitative study of customers and non-customers

Here, we interview hundreds of people in your catchment area by telephone (landline and mobile). We classify them into 3 categories: regular customers, occasional customers and non-customers. We ask them a whole series of questions to find out, for example, where non-customers go and why they don’t come to you (and therefore how to get them to come), or what occasional customers are missing to make them come back more often.

In the end, the optimisation study report is presented to you with a clear positioning for your outlet, the potential you could achieve and the action plan you need to put in place to get there.

In a nutshell 

The point of sale optimisation study is an effective and objective tool for increasing your sales, whether in the context of a lack of growth or the redevelopment/expansion of your business.

We’ve been carrying out this type of research for independent retailers and major groups for 20 years