Audits are an effective observation tool for evaluating everything from product displays and use of marketing materials, to brand exclusivity, franchise compliance, and even adherence to detailed company standards. During periodic visits, auditors openly evaluate the physical and visual aspects of the site according to your customized checklist.
Brand Audit
Brand audits are designed to protect brand image in the context of the physical sales environment. Auditors record location details (which may include digital photographs and embedded video) to confirm that the sales environment mirrors corporate expectations.
These specialized audits help:
- Provide visual confirmation of brand presentation and representation
- Document that brand integrity is maintained
- Appropriately confirm, realign, or reconsider relationships with sales parters.
Legal Compliance Audit
Legal Compliance audits help ensure employees are observing and enforcing the laws and regulations governing your business. Auditors perform specific scenarios to test employee compliance and may take instantly alert the company of the infractions via the Instant Feedback Results feature so that immediate can taken if necessary.
These specialized audits help
- Ensure employees understand the importance of industry regulations and the severity of infractions
- Protect your company from the repercussions of negligence
- Maintain corporate integrity
What is a Retail Audit?
Industry Today explains it as follows. “Fundamentally, a retail audit evaluates the condition of your retail location using hard data. Vendors, employees or a third-party scrutinise your store or pop-up shop to gather information on what’s selling well and what isn’t.
Often, retailers use profits as their main method of measuring success, but when you carry out frequent store audits, you have a lot of extra analytics that provide a broader picture of what state your business is in. There are a wide range of areas an audit can focus on including, but not limited to, merchandising audits, competitor pricing audits, inventory loss audits etc.
During a retail audit, you’ll uncover insights such as:
- Damaged products
- Stock levels (including stock on your shelves and stock out the back)
- Sales volume
- An outline on what your competitors are doing
- Calculations on visual retailing and in-store presentations
- Position of shelves, quantity of frontings, amount of SKUs available, misplaced/incorrect shelf tags
- An insight into your pricing scheme
- Where the products are positioned in store
Bear in mind you’ll also have to select the kind of audit that harmonises with your requirements most.”
Keep in mind that with all of this comes the opportunity to evaluate the customer experience.
