Consumer goods companies lose 10% of sales to being out of stock in store — how to fix it

Achieving the perfect point of sale is the daily challenge of trade marketing. To meet the needs of each point of sale and its specific, shifting circumstances, marketers and their supervisors need coordination, constant information and well-oiled processes. At the perfect or ideal point of sale, what the shopper comes looking for is always available, within reach, visible in its assigned space on the shelf. So how should processes be shaped to reach that goal of full availability? 

Along the way, trade marketing runs into the following obstacles. The product may be at the point of sale, but sitting in the stockroom. There may be administrative or process errors, so inventory records do not match what is actually there — what we call phantom inventory.

There is also the frequent stockout at the point of sale, which has to be caught in time and restocked; prices may be wrong; and, because no one knows what is happening at the point of sale, there may be poorly executed strategies, under-exploited points of sale, or other planning problems that better or fuller information would solve. 

Ultimately these challenges mean lower revenue. What is happening, plainly, is that we are losing opportunities to sell, and that can compromise as much as 10% of our sales. The key to recovering those lost sales is being available, and we get there through precise, up-to-date knowledge of what is happening to our products at every point of sale.

Geo-management of field processes, or field service management software, is built to centralize and systematize that information, strengthening business intelligence through better field processes and better indicators about those processes.

The marketer capturing prices or recording stockouts is in constant communication through a geo-management app such as GoDoWorks, giving us an up-to-date, complete and faithful view of the point of sale and, with it, better and more timely business decisions. That reduces the failures we mentioned, which come from missing information and disorganization. The marketer's productivity improves and with it our ability to respond or plan according to the needs we detect in the field. 

GDW Trade is GoDoWorks's solution designed specifically for trade marketing. We have a decade of experience delivering tailored solutions to companies, digging into their specific needs and empowering our clients with the efficiency and productivity gains of digital transformation.