Capturing and Gauging the Impact of In-store Promotion on Consumer Buying Decision

(From the article published in Marketing Mastermind)
The service offerings in most of the modern organized retail outlets do not have much of the required difference as expected by the leading players. Hence, the players would normally depend heavily on high decibel indoor and outdoor promotion strategies. Especially, the in-store promotion would come handy in influencing consumers to make in-store impulse decisions.
The in-store promotion schemes could broadly be classified into two categories:
· Monetary based promotion scheme – price off offers, unit or volume discount offers, combo or bundle offers, etc.
· Non-monetary based scheme – this mainly deals with the product/brand communication to the target consumers. This promotion would normally spread across the store. The location of this type of promotion is very vital to capture the consumer’s attention so as to influence their buying decision.
A non-monetary based promotion are generally sponsored by the manufacturers with the aim of sales promotions and is mostly targeted at those customers who have already decided to buy but are not sure of the brand that they want to buy. On the other hand, the monetary offers will influence even window shoppers or those who have not decided you to make a purchase. However, monetary and non-monetary in-store promotion strategies are very complementary in nature as both are very synergetic to a store’s performance. The primary motto of in-store promotion (monetary and non-monetary) will be to increase footfalls and the effective conversion of the same into sales. The aim of such combined promotional offers is also to get repetition of the footfalls and the enhancement of store or company loyalty among target consumers.
It is vital to have a concrete conceptual framework in order to capture and gauge the impact of in-store promotion in influencing consumer buying decision. A set of key indicators are required to provide a definite cue to the organized retailers to design effective monetary and non-monetary in-store promotion strategies. Some the possible key indicators for capturing and gauging the impact of in-store promotion on consumer buying decisions are:
· Setting an attainable goal – Deciding and quantifying the purpose of promotions
· Selection of target consumers
· Identification of promotion requirements
· Duration of the promotion
· Decide on monetary and non-monetary promotionDesigning, capturing and gauging mechanism