Home
Is your retail outlet facing issues that you alone cannot solve? Don’t worry retail audit companies are here for you with their top-notch services. A retail audit is a set of measures aimed at studying the state of business through a comprehensive analysis and monitoring of the operation of retail outlets.
A retail audit is carried out as part of marketing research and can consist of many intersecting, complementary and interrelated stages, ranging from territory research, retail audit, product display control, to outdoor advertising monitoring and competitor price analysis.
An audit of outlets is the most popular marketing tool and the most frequent initiators and consumers of these studies are manufacturers of goods and retail chains.
An audit of retail outlets usually begins with a study of the business. As part of the audit, the most detailed collection of information about retail outlets operating in the study area is carried out, starting from obtaining legal data, equipment used in the work, key technologies, and ending with an analysis of the breadth of the presented product range and turnover by key product groups.
This type of audit is in demand when expanding the area of operation of the trading network, which results in the opening of new outlets in certain areas (cities, districts, etc.)
When opening new outlets, one-to-one copying of the work logic and product range from existing stores will not always be able to provide the required return on the implementation of the sales plan. This is because the “marginality” of the outlet, the level of consumer demand, and the number of people can bring a lot of nuances to the work of a new store.
You also need to take into account other equally important factors, such as the geography of competitors’ outlets, the general “passability” of nearby streets, the availability of parking, the presence of main streets of continuous traffic nearby, etc.
There are two types of retail audit:
- Complete, when all outlets in a given territory are examined, and
- Selective (partial, rolling census), when only a certain part of them falls under the scope.
A complete retail audit is usually carried out at the very first survey when there is no known information about the business yet. Accordingly, a sample audit is usually carried out to clarify data for a particular area included in the zone of the surveyed outlet, since retailers are changing, new ones appear and old (unprofitable) outlets are closed.
A well-conducted audit of retail outlets allows you to save a lot of time, effort, and investment at the stage of:
- Expanding the distribution network to new territories,
- Planning the number and relative position of stores,
- Calculating the “running” assortment, build an optimal pricing policy,
- Selecting the right number of employees,
- Rationally approaching the number of vehicles for the delivery of goods.
So, why not add some more profit to your business with a small but essential activity- a retail audit?