This is the final entry in a three-part blog series on marketing to home improvement retailers.
Part one gave an overview of the retail home improvement category and shared the results of a survey on retail marketing practices. Part two covered home improvement retail merchandising and packaging. This part will discuss retail line reviews.
Retailers continually evaluate their vendors and merchandising mix with point-of-sale (POS) data, margin analysis, and supplier performance (fill-rate 95%+, inventory turns, sales per square foot).
Depending on the product category and/or department, line reviews are typically 1-year contracts, but could be up to 3-5 years. For certain product categories or departments, the retailer will hold online price auctions.
Depending on the product category, a retailer will often seek one or more national or pro brands, and a price brand, which often is a proprietary (house or private label) brand. Some line review trends to consider:
- Retailers focused on SKU rationalization and vendor consolidation
- Retailers are requesting more frequent line reviews, and demanding more support
- Note that home center retailers seek pro contractor business; likewise seek pro contractor brands
A challenger brand (not in the retailer) can win placements with special promotions
- Approach differs based on narrow or broad line supplier
- Identify the department or category merchant and pitch
- Provide market intelligence (share, equity, brand support)
- Hardware co-op is different; pitch individual stores, as well as corporate buyers
Incumbent suppliers and challenger brands can defend or gain placement with home center retailers through proactive merchandising and/or promotional support. Following are examples.
Below is an example of advertising flyers or circulars for both Lowe’s and The Home Depot from USG, by Construction Marketing Advisors.
Following is an example of a bi-lingual free-standing insert (FSI) announcing a promotion, (buy a truck box get a free vacuum cleaner), in support of a merchandising display placement for Ridgid Truck storage.
Be sure to share these details of retail line reviews with those who may also be interested using the social bookmarking tools below!
Some of these blogs truly do have fantastic content. Great marketing strategy lands up to great demand upon masses. So it is necessary to have good marketing intelligence to cover the local markets.
Thanks Handyman Fort Myers! Nice to know this is helping construction marketers.
Very nice. I think with the right marketing and a research that is well done, you can target the right people with optimum results. You just have to find the point where to find these people and how to approach them.
Good post!
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