Case Studies > Ensuring Merchandising Compliance from 35,000 Feet

Ensuring Merchandising Compliance from 35,000 Feet

Company Size

1,000+

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

RetailNext Merchandising Solution

Tech Stack

Image Snapshots
Annotated Notes

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Customer Satisfaction
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Inventory Management Systems
Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems

Applicable Industries

Retail

Applicable Functions

Business Operation
Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Remote Control
Retail Store Automation

Services

Software Design & Engineering Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Lolli and Pops is a purveyor of sweetness whose stores are stocked to the rafters with sweets from around the world, sourced from both famed producers and local artisans, changing daily based on batch size and availability. Lolli and Pops measures the quality of its sweets not only by their origin, but by the memories they evoke and the smiles they create. The teams in over 40 locations across the United States are committed to sweetening their customers’ day.

The Challenge

As the vice president of product at Lolli and Pops, Jessica Mennella leads the buying team and is responsible for much of the visual merchandising at the company’s stores across the United States. Each store location has a wide selection of confectionery SKUs, and for its scooped sweets and bulk items, stores have up to 350 bins or more. Re-assorting and setting the stores can be a difficult challenge, involving many meetings with Jessica’s planning team, and often requiring a lot of travel. On a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, Jessica found herself chatting online with her planner. As they discussed 10-15 stores, each with a slightly different layout that had been planned to roughly 80 percent, they struggled to finish and to fine-tune the layout, facing issues like where to visually place dark chocolates in a store filled with sours.

The Solution

The RetailNext merchandising solution allowed Jessica to observe snapshots of stores, displays, fixtures, and product assortment. Despite low-bandwidth airplane Wi-Fi, Jessica was able to go in-store and see how stores were laid out, pulling up still image snapshots from the locations, taking screenshots, and emailing the images –annotated with notes -to her planner. Upon arrival, Jessica and her planner had finished the exercise, finalizing the merchandising layout in every store.

Operational Impact

Jessica was able to observe and finalize store layouts remotely, reducing the need for extensive travel.
The solution allowed for real-time collaboration between Jessica and her planner, improving efficiency.
Annotated images provided clear communication and documentation for future reference.
The process ensured consistent and optimized merchandising across all store locations.

Quantitative Benefit

Reduced travel time and costs associated with in-person store visits.
Increased efficiency in finalizing store layouts, reducing the time taken from days to hours.