There are more than 40,000 convenience stores in the UK, attracting 46 million UK adults every week. But shoppers behave differently in the convenience channel compared with grocery, spending much less time in store, writes HIM’s Blake Gladman. On top of this, the sector is fragmented and complex and there is no data available to validate the return on investment you get within shopper marketing. That’s why HIM has partnered with the leading point-of-purchase experts POPAI to bring together extensive shopper expertise and vision tracking technology to provide the first-of-its-kind review of the display effectiveness in convenience.

Over the past six months HIM and POPAI have been capturing shopper interactions and analysing nearly half a million point-of-purchase (POP) display interactions, meaning for the first time we can help retailers and suppliers challenge the conventional practices around shopper marketing.

Finding the perfect POP communication will always be a fine balancing act between a science and an art. What our research does show, though, is some helpful signposts as to the types of POP combinations that are best at communicating to shoppers, and the most efficient and effective at driving impact, engagement and conversion by key categories.

The main shelf still plays a pivotal role in influencing the shopper with six of the top 10 POP types featuring those located on the shelf, and with the best performer being simple product price communication. However, only three of the top 10 most effective displays contain a promotion, and our research would suggest that creating an atmosphere message and display is more powerful for engaging with a shopper who is typically in a ‘solution’ mindset when in store, and thus more driven by satisfying this need than by deals.

Dump bins with wraps are the most effective off-shelf solution to drive shopper engagement. With high impact given that they are in typically high-footfall location, they encourage strong engagement and conversion ratios, meaning these are fantastic tools to drive incremental sales while shoppers navigate the store.

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