The Road less Trodden by Retailers

If you see people flocking to a Bru stall inside PVR Plaza on a hot sultry Sunday afternoon, then don’t get shocked. After all, who wouldn’t like quenching his thirst for free. Bru was giving free samples of its new range of cold coffees and was trying to popularize its new product in the market.

Distinctive product features that deliver actual differentiated benefits in a tangible way are the guts of a successful demo, because it’s almost impossible to communicate the product features and benefits on the package. It is a form of outdoor marketing, where the target consumers can experience the feel good factor and the wow factor of the product. In a way the product gets a good launch pad. “I really liked the taste of new Bru coffee, its ideal for summer and it’s easy to prepare also. I will be buying this coffee from the market,” said Ambika Rai, a shopper.

Sampling and demonstration is not at all a new concept. While FMCG companies have understood its importance, retailers are still lagging behind and are not tapping on the potential of demonstrations and sampling.

Manufactures and Retailers can both gain: Today the consumer is over exposed to front line marketing with commercial breaks on TV, pop-up messages on computers and mobiles, and the bombardment of unsolicited mailings. Directionally, sharp retailers and manufacturers are recognizing the future of ‘sampling’ is evolving into a more sophisticated ‘consumer engagement’ strategy. For manufacturers creating buzz and brand recognition with their TG is achieved, retailers need to recognize that while consumers are tasting or testing products in the store, they’re also spending more time there and that invariably adds up to increased sales, even if the sampled product isn’t purchased.

Associated Spends: According to  Mr Mohit Khattar, Chief Operating officer of Natures Basket Ltd, “Demonstrations are usually integral to the launch and promotion of  new products. The financial arrangements involve the cost of promoters as well as the cost of products to be sampled. The fixed infrastructure costs associated with sampling are usually small.”

“HairXpreso believes in building it’s business by inducing trials. Free hair cuts are given as sampling for the first seven days of every HairXpreso’s inauguration,” says Mr Zafar Khan, Managing Partner, Hairxpreso.

The best time: International retail statistics suggest that fewer than half of shoppers try your demo’d product, and about 10% of them actually buy the product. And perhaps

10 per cent  of this final group becomes regular users. Unless the store has a lot of foot traffic the payoff is slow. Weekends are usually regarded as the best time to give such demonstrations. Festive months are also an important time to gear up demo and free sampling. Experts also believe that demos work better with less affluent shoppers

“We do not believe that for fine food there is just “one perfect time in the year” for product demonstrations. This is usually a function of the product to be sampled, seasonality, product launch and life stage of the product in the store etc. For instance, while summers would be perfect for sampling of frozen desserts, winters or monsoons would be ideal for sampling of hot beverages, so on and so forth,” says Mr. Khattar.

Cost benefit ratio

Demos are more about building relationships over time than it is about ringing the register on the day of the demo. Usually one time costs incurred on demo marketing

can generate benefits that are derived over a reasonably large period of time and outweigh the costs by a significant percentage for both retailers and FMCG companies.

Mr Khattar opines that such demonstration activities are quite successful for  stores where the rate of new product introduction at their stores is usually very high and the sampling exercises helps them educate the customer and creating awareness of the new products.

Planning is the key: Cramming demo stations randomly into supermarket nooks and crannies, with no regard to traffic flow, can kill it quick. For demos to work effectively, having a well versed spokesperson selling the benefits is imperative to gaining trial and should not miss on asking for the Sale.

According to Mr Khan, “Demonstrations are one of the best ways of advertising oneself. Through demonstrations, customers actually realize the true worth of the service provider.”

As with anything, it’s all about execution. If a retailer really decides they want to demo product for the purposes of incremental sales, they will need much more than a paper table cloth on a card table to get desired results.