At the endpoint of the supply chain of commodities are the retailers. Initially restricted to influencing the wholesalers only, commodity companies are now-a-days trying to improve their retail presence. They are increasingly engaging with the retailers directly. They are trying to reduce their dependence on the push sales from the wholesalers only. With increasing use of technology, it is now easier for very big companies also to directly interact with the retailers.

Advertisement

The retail shops are generally located in busy markets. Here, due to high rents, brands do not have too much of display space. Apart from Advertisement for Commodity brands, effective marketing also includes ensuring the display of the company’s product in the most visible position. All cement, paints, tiles, etc. brands try to be in the front, not stacked in the backyard godown of the retailer.

Attractive Packaging

The product packaging, if attractive, sometimes forces the retailer to display the product. Certain products are such that it is not possible to make brand name very visible on the packing. This is due to the product structure, like in the case of steel, glass and asbestos sheets. Hence, companies will put prominent advertisement at the retail counters. To ensure retail presence, companies are giving extra incentives to retailers to display the products at the most visible position.

Retailer Schemes

To ensure loyalty from the retailers, companies run Trade Partner schemes. Reward of the scheme is in the form of shiny metal, tours, white goods and often cash. A lot of companies are even servicing the retailers directly, bypassing the wholesalers. Organizations are incentivizing the retailers if they maintain a certain percentage of their sales with the company’s brands or grow it by a certain percentage.

Often, companies run short term competitions to drive retail visibility. At the end of the competition period, the highest achiever retailer is recognized in front of other retailers. Relationship building activities like family get-togethers, festival/ birthday/ anniversary gifting, training sessions for product knowledge enhancement, etc. are conducted by commodity companies to keep the retailers to the loyalty-fold.

Relationship building

To emotionally bind the retailers so that they stock the product, commodity companies are engaging with them in non-business ways also, like birthdays, festivals, get-togethers etc. This helps in ensuring the retail presence at the the outlets even though the sale might not be very high from them initially.

Strong retail reach is a prerequisite for commodity marketing success. Heavy advertisement will make the brand visible but if the brand is not present even in small quantities at a multitude of retail shops, it will not be a success story. To ensure retail presence, companies must engage with the end customers and make them feel so much comfortable with the brand that they ask for it at the retail shops.