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Harrison Carloss has used the following skills/services in the project.
Arco is the UK market leader supplying safety and workwear products to a variety of sectors, through direct sales, on-line and a national chain of stores. The company wanted to position its stores as the ‘go to’ trade outlet for workwear, footwear and weatherwear, with a focus on the professional tradesman and SME audiences.
The brief was to improve the retail environment, develop a coherent proposition
and presentation of the offer and build traffic amongst trade customers, whilst retaining the integrity of the wider corporate brand.
Tradesmen live and work “job to job” and their time is precious. Yet they display loyalty to trade counters, often built on the back of the personality of the counter staff. In return for that loyalty, tradesmen expect great value and are always “looking for a deal”.
It was clear that to increase market share in this highly competitive market required a direct, no-nonsense approach to tempt new customers to the stores.
We used the insights of primary research to understand the target audience’s buying patterns and perceptions of workwear and we sought feedback from front-line retail staff. Concepts and propositions were tested for use in branding / POS and marketing collateral.
From the findings we revamped the retail environment to highlight a more dynamic offering based on ‘top brands’, ‘great value’ and ‘expert advice’. This included a complete overhaul of in-store merchandising, branding and signage.
To drive leads and sales we worked with the in-house team to develop a dynamic promotional programme, including advertising, leafleting, direct mail, email and mobile texting to increase footfall and spend per head. To stimulate trial purchases and build loyalty we also helped introduce an annual calendar of promotions and special offers.
Successful trial leading to roll-out across national network of trade counters.
Turnover across trade counters up by 30% per annum in year one.
Increase in support from vendors for annual programme of promotions.
