Only 20 per cent of promotions are advertised in advertising, magazines or large posters positioned outside the store. The other 80 per cent are only seen if a customer comes into the store.

It is the day before the launch of the latest Harry Potter blockbuster. To maximize sales the release is a Bank Holiday weekend.

‘Big Retailer’ learns late in the day that its competitor has advertised the books at £1.99 less than ‘Big Retailer’s.’ The retailer changes its price to match, but it is too late for advertising on TV or leaflets so they arrange new POS giving the revised pricing. Problem solved?

It is Saturday. Shoppers make their way to the book department. As they reach the display of Harry Potter blockbusters, there is no special pricing or promotion signage.

The savvy shoppers have been watching prices and know that ‘The Other Guy’s’ price has been reduced. Problems at ‘Big Retailer’ mean the new POS is not in store, so they are unaware that the price has been dropped. As a result, the books are passed over.

Offers are used to attract business and wisdom dictates that this scenario is part of being a competitive retailer as it is not possible to predict the future.

Much planning goes into promotional pricing, but prices are often changed at the last minute. Usually, the process works well. However, with the costs of paper and labour, and the opportunity for error, there becomes a gap between a fair and optimal performance.

Retailers may not recognize that while poor signing may seem like a minor hassle, it is causing them to leak money. Modern signage can prevent this.

The conventional process
To consider the costs of signing and potential errors, it is helpful to review the steps involved in creating a promotion. It will become apparent that in-store signing is the weakest link.

The Buying Team determines which items will appear in promotion. Next, the pricing is set in the advertising system. The price is entered in the Head Office (HO) system with the event start and stop dates and discounts.

This information feeds the Point of Sale (EPOS) system. Next, the promotional pricing is entered into the HO signing system and scheduled to print either centrally or in-store. The signs are ordered through a user interface on a HO system or by email request to the HO signage team. Centrally printed signs are shipped to the store. With in-store printing the data for the signs is sent to the store and then printed locally.

Costly concerns
The signs are printed without regard to store inventory or store layout. In-store, they have to be sorted into order resulting in some wastage. The remaining signs are then checked against upcoming print advertisements.

The night before the promotion, store personnel scan items and compare the price in the EPOS system to the signs. If a sign is incorrect, the associate notes the item as in need of new signage.

The process
If signage is printed centrally, there is no option but to order a new sign from HO and wait for it to arrive.
In a better scenario, the store associate may use an online system and reprint the most recent sign. If the price on the sign is incorrect, however, this will not solve the problem.

Other times, the store associate will use a template to build a sign in-store. This is subject to error including incorrect spellings, inconsistent branding and wrong pricing. Signs must then be trimmed by hand. This leads to inconsistent signage. As well as wasting resources, there is reduced consumer confidence to consider.

What of the inaccurate signs posted? A customer sees a name-brand pair of jeans on sale for £12.95 and goes to the till with five pairs. However, the price is £21.95 per pair. The customer is annoyed and leaves with a ‘bait and switch’ feeling. An honest mistake becomes a retail conspiracy.

The second phase: the retailer improved the set-up/take-down process. Through integration with handheld devices, the signing system data became back office data used to drive the associates’ workflow. With the handheld device, the store associate scans the signs, as they are set-up, checking the accuracy, recording when each is set-up and noting quantity. The system knows when each sign’s price ends. The set-up data and the pricing data are merged, and through the handheld device, the store associates are alerted when signs must be taken down. This is effective when a price is changed in the middle of a promotion.

In further phases, the retailer leveraged the new data created by the signing system, allowing the sign shop users to use the set-up/take-down metrics to better estimate the default quantity of each sign needed in proportion with store size and sales volume. Because they are integrated with the advertising system, they can estimate the number of signs to be printed per store giving the manager the information needed to estimate labour.

This particular retailer has integrated its rebate system. They print informational signs used by store associates to guide them in putting up vendor-supplied sidekicks and banners when promoting current rebates.

Conclusion
A middle-sized retailer has many items in its inventory. Each has a number, a description and a price. Most will experience one price change or price promotion during the year, and this will be advertised or unadvertised. The systems handling inventory, pricing and promotion are critical, as are signing systems.

Poor signing contributes to excess labour, high consumables costs, diminished customer confidence, and causes a retailer to be sluggish when responding to market changes.
Many retailers rely on a similar business process for signing, an Enterprise Signing Solution exists to reduce and/or eliminate signing setbacks.