Focus On Shopper’s Market Basket Size To Exponentially Increase Sales

Market basket is the most effective way to measure a brand's true value. It's the key to driving true loyalty and gaining a competitive advantage. The harsh reality is that over 80% of natural brands fail within the first year. I'm committed to changing this. Level the playing field between you and the most sophisticated brands in your category so that you can compete head to head and toe to toe with them. You will learn the strategies that you need to be able to grow sustainable sales, and become a partner with your retailer to help both of you drive sales throughout the stores across multiple categories. I'm committed to helping you become a category leader. 

A category leader is any brand willing and able to step up and help their retail partners grow sustainable sales by leveraging the strengths of your brand. 

The market basket is the sum total of dollars in the shopper's total purchases on a shopping trip. This is perhaps the most valuable metric for any brand. You're taught to pay attention to your sales volume and your product ranking within the category, but this overlooks what really matters to retailers. The value of your brand to a retailer extends well beyond your products. When shoppers purchase your product, they purchase complementary products throughout the store.

For example, if you're an organic brand, then your customers are more likely to buy organic products in other categories across the entire store. Therefore, your customers are more valuable to the retailer than your mainstream counterparts. 

Understanding how to leverage this is critically important to your future. You should never try to compete on price or sales velocity alone. You're worth far more to the retailer than the ingredients in your products. The true value of your brand is the customer who buys it. The customer who goes out of their way to choose your brand over the competition. Retailers generically don't make anything. What they sell is the real estate that your brand occupies on their shelves.

Savvy retailers want a couple of simple things, and if you can help them achieve this, then they're going to help you. Retailers want to know that if they put your product on their shelves that they're going to see growth in the category. They want a reasonable profit from selling your item and from the growth in the category. Additionally, they want a competitive edge in their market, and these are the strategies that you can use to help accomplish them. Strategies to increase market basket size and sustainable sales. 

Now, let's focus on shopper's market basket size to exponentially increase sales. Leverage these important strategies for every new item introduction and for every retailer appointment. They will help you accelerate your brand sales and help you stand out on a crowded shelf. 

Why is this important? Traditional strategies overlook this important concept and focus primarily on single items ranking in the category, which typically paints natural brands in a negative light. The reality is that natural brands are responsible for sustainable growth across every category and across every channel. 

For proof about how this works, listen to several podcast episodes where industry thought leaders and CEOs candidly share and validate these strategies that I'm sharing with you. In addition to the show notes for every podcast episode, I include a link to a feature article that I wrote for the 2016 Category Management Handbook. 

Here is what I proved in that article. Total dairy was up 1.5%. Organic dairy was up over 12%. Organic dairy only represented 9.8% of that sliver of the pie, the multi-billion-dollar dairy category. I identified that when you remove organic from total dairy, then total dairy sales were only up .5%. 

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I found this to be true across virtually every category. What this means is that every category would be flat or declining in the absence of natural organic brands. Even better yet, when you focus on plant-based, gluten-free, allergy-free, etc, the sales growth was even more dramatic. 

The point is this. Retailers want insights, actionable insights. They don't need a canned topline report with your unique spin telling them that you rank number five in the category, etc.. 

Savvy retailers want to understand who your customer is, that unique customer that you drive into their store. They want to know what other products your customer is buying while they are in their store buying your products.

A lot of brands overlook this strategy, even the big brands. This will help you get your brand on more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.