Small start-up businesses are unleashing the power of data collection to drive sales and success in the food industry
A food business is the most common gateway to entrepreneurship. Recently, food start-ups have been emerging everywhere and turned into darlings of investors, especially when they involve healthier or vegan options of beloved foods – from protein bars to savory snacks and frozen entrees.
Start-up food businesses have many hurdles to overcome, including complying with federal and local regulations and developing appropriate manufacturing, packaging, and storage processes. However, once a product hits store shelves, most business owners lose visibility of how their product is being presented and promoted to customers. This can lead to revenue loss and, ultimately, business failure.
Regular merchandising surveys are a sure way for food manufacturers to keep an eye on store shelves. Frequently checking how a product line is displayed at the store can detect many issues, including promotional non-compliance, damaged shipments, price disparities, and emerging competition. The sooner such information is relayed to management, the faster it can be addressed so it does not negatively impact sales.
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And this is why mature, large CPG businesses have literal “armies” of people monitoring store shelves.
Start-up food businesses can leverage the same strategy of the big market players by using a mobile app for merchandising surveys. Such solutions are easy to use and implement, even for companies with limited IT resources: “Many of our customers are start-up food businesses”, says Sergey Gorbunov, CEO of VisitBasis, one of the leading systems in the market. He adds: “Some of these companies started using our software when they had only a couple of salespeople and we have seen them grow and expand their businesses over the years.”
VisitBasis is a mobile app for merchandising surveys that allows businesses to implement a retail data collection system by making it easy to plan, assign, and report on in-store activities. It is ideal for start-up food businesses as it is subscription-based (SaaS) and charges monthly, on a per-user basis – not requiring an upfront yearly payment. VisitBasis offers a 14-day free trial and includes onboarding assistance for new subscribing accounts.