In the world of fast-moving consumer goods, speed, price and convenience are all essential factors when it comes to both getting customers through the shop or supermarket door and ensuring that they leave feeling satisfied.
With customer experience increasingly being prioritised as a key differentiator for the grocery sector, the ability to roll-out popular promotions quickly and ensure that customers have a smooth journey around the store has become more crucial than ever, contributing to both immediate sales and future loyalty.
As well as using intelligent, pre-planned marketing campaigns to set the customer agenda and boost sales of key lines, the ability to react to an important sales opportunity linked to a sudden change in weather or social media food trend are also essential for physical stores, which in turn demands fast access to a wide range of printed customer-facing signage.
Retailers that are equipped to deliver this essential collateral on-demand using high-definition printers and multifunction printers inevitably have an important advantage.
Alongside strategic end-of-aisle positioning, eye-catching signage plays an important role when it comes to promoting sales of key items. Likewise, while shop window stickers and signs are a proven way to boost footfall and draw customers in to the store, directional banners and point-of-sale signage have an equally essential role to play in the sales cycle, especially when it comes to impulse buying and other spontaneous purchases.
Rather than wait for printed marketing collateral to be sent to store, retail-ready high-definition printers and multifunction printers give multi-site retailers the ability to react to a sudden heatwave, news report or online food trend by creating large and small marketing and point-of-sale materials on demand.
Cost-effective and practical, this clear directional signage not only helps improves the customer experience by helping them to find what they are looking for but can also be used strategically to draw shoppers towards high margin products, as well as promoting lines that are underperforming.
At a time when delivering a frictionless customer experience is high on both the online and offline retail agenda, fulfilling a basic requirement to enable customers to find what they need not only helps to promote sales but can also avoid frustrating shoppers by making them seek out an assistant to ask for help – or, worse still, driving them to abandon their shop.
Small enough for use in back offices, the latest retail-ready printers offer the flexibility to create large-format, high-impact directional banners and floor signage, as well as instructional shelf labels and gondola frames, making the most of valuable shelf and aisle space.
At the shelf-edge, rather than simply highlighting a price discount, savvy marketers can make the most of this ability to print on demand by quoting a recent critic’s endorsement or tapping into a national marketing campaign with printed materials featuring eye-catching images and clear text. As well as promoting sales, this information can speed-up decision-making by helping to guide the undecided shopper and, crucially, make them feel good about their choice.
Studies have shown that, rather than increase satisfaction and sales, having a wide choice of products can in fact serve to demotivate shoppers, resulting in fewer sales.
Rather than leaving customers feeling overwhelmed when looking at a choice of products, point-of-sale material such as price tags and product information supports decision making, empowering the customer, as well as encouraging spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous purchases. Likewise, with dietary requirements a priority for a growing number of shoppers, it can also be used to highlight a key ingredient or emphasise the fact that a product is nut or gluten-free, for example.
With the same footprint as a standard office device, OKI’s digital LED printers and retail devices offer the flexibility to deliver small-format shelf-edge labels and price tags, as well as large, double sided banners up to 1.2 m on waterproof media, making them suitable all around the store, from outdoor pavement signs, as well as alongside chilled and other fresh produce, or in the freezer aisles.
Colour print technology accurately matches the right retail or product brand colour, reassuring loyal customers and tapping in to subconscious purchasing cues, while the ability to deliver short print-runs on different media sizes and types delivers the right message to customers without the delay and expense of outsourcing print requirements.
At a time of continued pressure for the grocery market and fierce competition for loyalty, customer experience matters more than ever for food retailers. For this reason, the ability to react fast to unpredictable seasonal weather or tap into changing food trends and dietary demands by printing instructional and inspirational customer-facing signage on-demand undoubtedly offers a vital tool in the retail armoury.
