Here's where analytics becomes a game-changer for suppliers looking to gain a significant advantage. Whether you're an experienced supplier or just starting out, leveraging analytics is crucial for elevating your buyer relationship and securing a competitive edge in the market.
Let's explore 10 ways analytics can improve your relationship with your Walmart buyer.
10 Ways Walmart Suppliers Use Analytics to Improve Buyer Relations
1. Hard Data
Instead of subjective sales pitches, a reliable retail analytics solution lets a brand base its proposals and explanations on hard, reliable, objective data. And buyers prefer partners who lead with verifiable proof, not “just trust us” [wink].
2. Quick, Accurate Answers
Walmart buyers have a lot of responsibility – too much to stay on top of all the variables impacting category sales. Buyers often have pressing questions, and they need fast, accurate answers. Suppliers with a dependable retail analytics platform can be more responsive to such questions.
3. Actionable Insights
Analytics can tell retailers and brands not only what’s happening, but why it’s happening and what they should do. The diagnostic and prescriptive benefits of analytics help brands position themselves as an indispensable resource to their Walmart buyers.
4. Haystacks & Needles
Haystacks – as in “a needle in a haystack” – sometimes get a raw deal. More haystacks means more needles, after all. But brands with sub-par analytics often don’t have the capacity to incorporate new “haystacks” (data sets/sources) or to isolate valuable “needles” (insights) within a gargantuan haystack. The best retail analytics tools and processes can do both – and build retailer relations and sales in the process.
5. Brand Differentiation
In a world of high-volume, low-margin packaged goods, the difference between Brand A and Brand B is often – in a buyer’s eyes – minimal or even negligible. So when making decisions about what brands, SKUs, and volume levels to carry, buyers consider the value-add of insights. Brand A, through its retail analytics platform, offers insightful perspective to grow the category; Brand B does not. Guess who has the upper hand?
6. Trust
And as a brand harnesses its data and analytics platform to help a buyer advance the category and achieve their goals, trust between the merchandiser and the brand rep grows with dividends to both supplier and retailer over the long-run.
7. Consistency
A retail analytics program is an important part of company structure. It stays, even when employees go. Thus, a brand’s analytics platform affords consistency in buyer communications and relations – with fewer disruptions when the sales team changes. Moreover, an analytics platform can offer the brand an element of continuity when buyers change over.
8. Rival Retailers
A brand’s analytics solution may offer not only insight into category dynamics at Walmart, but insight across other retailers as well. Naturally, a buyer wishes to understand how categories are being merchandised at rival retailers – and a good retail analytics platform may provide those insights.
9. Logistics & Expenses
For a buyer, there are two ways to grow a category: (a) drive more sales and/or (b) run the category and supply chain more effectively. And buyers often face a difficult Catch 22. The more they pick high-velocity products, the more they may have to contend with out of stocks and other issues. A supplier’s retail analytics software can offer the buyer timely perspectives on logistical and merchandising inefficiencies.
10. More Sales
Ultimately, for the buyer, it all comes down to sales. And not just any sales, but incremental sales – sales that don’t cannibalize existing SKUs but advance the category on the whole. Analytics offers the means – data, insights, actions – to help both retailer and brand drive incremental growth of the category.
By investing in a reliable retail analytics tool that provides hard data, quick answers, and actionable insights, you can set yourself apart from the competition and become a trusted partner to your buyer. Equip yourself with the tools that will differentiate your brand, position you as a valuable asset, and propel your business forward. With a focus on leveraging analytics to make informed decisions and optimize your strategies, you'll be on the path to achieving your ultimate goal of increasing sales and unlocking your brand's full potential.
Take your supplier-buyer relations to the next level with Spotlight Retail Analytics. Contact us today to see how we can help you drive growth, elevate your relationship with the buyer, and achieve unparalleled success in the market. Let's talk.
Check out our blog post: "Best Practices for Collaborating with your Retailer".
