Page 73 - Food & Drink Magazine Nov-Dec 2018

Standing out in a crowd
With an estimated 500 million online stores, ensuring your product stands out from the pack is even more important than ever, writes GS1’s Richard Jones.
SUPPLIER SPOTLIGHT
WHETHER you are selling through bricks and mortar retailers or online, your challenge is to capture the eye of the consumer on the shelf or on screen. With an estimated 500 million stores already online, and the number growing every day, how do you make your product stand out?
A study published in the
Journal of Consumer Behaviour
by the National Chengchi University in China identified that there is not a “one size fits all” model for the way to present products online. Low cost items such as foodstuffs and cheaper clothing items will appeal more to emotion and impulse. They will sell best with a large, attractive image of the product. Smiling, happy users also inspire a greater desire to purchase.
On the other hand, more complex purchasing decisions required for higher value items, such as electronics and white goods, demand more data as consumer decisions are based more on facts and logic. These items don’t need a big, shiny picture. They require specifications, data, user reviews and information that can inform and support comparisons between options.
While the research suggests emotion still plays a significant
role in decisions on lower cost items, we are also seeing a growing demand for nutritional information on food items, particularly from younger consumers. The challenge then is to balance the presentation of images and data for each category. Marketers need to ensure they get the right combination to ensure their product stands out from the pack in the pages and pages of products presented to consumers.
EVOLVING TOOL KIT
GS1 Australia has been working with manufacturers for nearly forty years to help them sell their products efficiently through whatever channels are available. The support tools have evolved in this time and we now have a more comprehensive offer for our nearly 19,000 member companies.
Smart Media is a database where brand owners can store their product images and consumer relevant product information and share it with retailers of all types. No matter what the mix of images and data required, everything can be stored in Smart Media and made available to anyone selling your product.
Brand owners can choose whether to provide all the images and data themselves, or simply send their product to GS1 (and it may already be there for barcode testing), to have our team photograph it from all angles, as well as weigh, measure and capture all the information available from the packaging and nutritional panels which is then loaded into Smart Media.
RANKING RESULTS
An area well understood by those selling online is the need to present your product as high on the Google rankings as possible. However, this is a complex process involving
navigating the ever-changing Google algorithms that determine priority.
One technique that has been proven to move your product up the Google rankings is to structure the data in a consistent and easily interpreted manner, not just for humans but for Google’s machines. GS1 SmartSearch is a standard for presenting information in a structured format that delivers more relevant search results, presents more detailed and accurate information in those results and, most importantly, delivers greater sales performance for those who take the time to follow its disciplines.
Those companies that have adopted GS1 SmartSearch have recorded immediate improvements in the ranking of their products when directly compared with competitors’ products. This leads to increased sales and happier consumers because they have found exactly what they have been looking for.
A sales and marketing strategy that includes image and data distribution through GS1 Smart Media, and adopts the practices of GS1 SmartSearch, will be sure
to reap rewards. ✷
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | November-December 2018 Food&Drink business | 73