Availability Audits

Availability audits are the first stage of the IMS check, fix and influence model. Availability audits can be used to check the availability and visibility of your product or promotion, or those of your competitors. Auditing compliance can also allow you to check that your products are ranged in all agreed stores and is located in the agreed in-store locations.

Availability audits encompass many aspects of in-store data collection, but the most common aspects include:

Product Range - Which SKUs are stocked by the store
Product Availability - Out of stocks, number of facings and share of space
Price Compliance - Displayed price and scanned price of the product
POS - Presence of shelf edge labels, store printed 'offer' POS & externally produced POS
Promotional Compliance- Promotional price and location of promotional display
Planogram Compliance- Location of SKUs
Competitor Information - (All / any of the above for competitor products)

Once auditing has been completed and relevant data has been collected (including digital photographs where applicable), IMS will then look at what is required to fix any non compliant issues in-store by effectively analysing the data collected.

Availability audits can act as a platform for IMS to fix any issues with effective merchandising activity (the second stage of the check, fix and influence model) in order to optimise your presence and maximise your ROI.

If you'd like to find out exactly what's happening in-store using field marketing then click here to contact our sales team.