What we've come to know as the powerful combination of product, price, place, promotion, people and process (the six Ps) for in-store alignment.

The metrics if you like for a perfect set-up. In so doing, steering shoppers to exactly which products you want them to see online and offline, with the highest chance of sales.

The perfect store, unlike the name suggests, is, in effect, not about achieving perfection; instead, it's about continuously evolving and progressing to the next level — where the needs of shoppers are truly met, and lasting impressions are made.

Popping into a shop to buy milk and a roast chicken and leaving with way more — that's not necessarily by chance. What it comes down to is planning, data collection and analysis on the retailer's part. Where displays have perhaps caught the shoppers' eye or a promo event draws them in.

A store employee had the right know-how in aisle seven to assist a shopper who couldn't decide on product x or y. Or at the coffee takeaway, where clear marketing around ethically sourced beans hit the spot — doing good is good for business, right?

Like its offline equivalent, an e-commerce perfect store — as pointed out by www.estoremedia.com — hinges on a few essential criteria. Fundamentally, consumers need to be able to easily find your products, understand and engage with the offering and no-mess, no-fuss, purchase available items.

The success criteria come down to:
  • portfolio and availability
  • content
  • visibility (search and category placement)
  • price
  • ratings and reviews, and
  • promotions.

To achieve the perfect store online 'aha moment', all these elements must be optimised to one degree or another.

In terms of scale, examples of an offline-online perfect store blend can be seen with Walmart and Costco. According to Vispera, Visual Intelligence for Retail, they both offer a 360-degree, customer-centric experience by leveraging data from their stores and executing these.

Another vital link in the chain is the role of manufacturers, who play a crucial role, as suggested by www.traxretail.com, as they help figure out the best shopping experiences for their brands and translate them into feasible win-win recommendations.

Building this perfect store strategy also means working collaboratively to enhance the shopping experience.

How to build the perfect store strategy

Knowing your shopper from the inside out as the act of purchasing is rarely based on a mindless decision. An in-depth understanding of the path to purchase allows all players to make the most significant impact on each decision in favour of the brands they support.

Use the six Ps as strategic anchors and understand that the shelf is the most critical 'battlefield' online and offline. Thanks to data and analytics, sales drivers can be identified and the ideal shelf can be designed to optimise performance.

You can clearly see success in implementing a perfect store by layering a set of best practices and rules per retail channel. Such as similar products of the same brand were regrouped into blocks for visual impact for shoppers or prices remaining on target across all channels.

Sharing the perfect store strategy and making it every collaborator's business for every department:
  • merchandising
  • customer marketing
  • sales ops, and
  • field teams.

Aligning KPIs and reporting metrics as you cannot manage what you cannot consistently measure.

In a recent Trax whitepaper, when sharing insights from industry leaders, the consensus was that the future of the perfect store depends on having 'eyes' in the store, mining shelf data for real-time insights and leveraging the power of the gig economy to execute with pace.

It also requires partnering strategically with retailers to achieve their shared goals and align their visions to reimagine the experience. 

For more information, visit www.smollan.com. You can also follow Smollan on Instagram.