Look at what Epson’s 20/20 Vision survey of retailers’ in-store POS spend says about your future as a supplier.
If you offer retail POS production you’re going to have adapt your business to offer a mix of digital and print-based products over the next few years. This is just one of the trends highlighted by Epson’s recent 20|20 Vision survey into the European retail industry’s use of instore print and digital POS both now and by the year 2020.
500 senior brand and marketing managers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain participated in the survey. All of the UK retailers polled say they need to adapt their market focus in order to drive growth. As a result, the POS landscape in the UK is predicted to change considerably as they seek to grow business by changing their regional demographic focus and broaden their reach into new mass or specialist sectors.
The good news for PSPs is that over half of retailers polled said their POS advertising campaign budgets are predicted to increase substantially by 2020. The survey also reveals that advances in POS technology and techniques, increasing competition and the drive for growth by diversifying into new specialist, mass or regional markets will result in more frequent print/digital POS campaigns and, as a result, generate increased POS volumes overall.
While digital POS will have a significant and growing presence, most retailers say that print will remain a vital component of in-store promotion in the future. Over half say their print POS volumes per campaign are increasing, while one in four say their print POS volumes per campaign are decreasing. More focussed, localised POS campaigns and faster production, turnaround and responsiveness to consumer feedback are the keys to success say retailers.
But the retailers also predict that in-store POS campaigns will need to become much more dynamic and targeted to drive response. In the future, the choice of using print and/or digital POS will be linked much more closely to the product value and to the age and gender of the target customer. Dynamic digital POS tends to be preferred for special promotions that change every couple of days, but print POS is preferred to convey brand quality.
The Epson survey shows that reducing POS production costs and waste and improving campaign targeting and time to market are priorities for most retailers over the next few years. POS materials not being produced or supplied on time and failure to target the right demographic are the main reasons for missing in-store POS objectives. Consequently, 81% of UK retailers say that ‘design centrally/print locally’ is the single most important print production model to support their drive to achieve more frequent, time-sensitive and localised campaigns by 2020.
The advances in print technology have enabled PSPs to cost-effectively produce stunning graphics that meet the quality demands of brand retailers. The ability to print ever wider colour gamuts, challenging spot colours and metallic effects, affordably, has to be a serious consideration for PSPs to maintain competitiveness. It is clear too that PSPs need to consider adding digital POS services to their portfolio, either directly or through strategic partnerships.
“The research findings certainly echo the trends we are already experiencing in the sector,” says James Henry, head of retail, Intermarketing Agency. “As a retail marketing agency our focus has always been on providing the best possible POS solutions based on our clients and having a view on return on investment.
“We’ve already started to see significant growth in digital POS. This is enabling us to deliver highly targeted and tactical campaigns that we can tailor based on targets, sales and seasonality. Face recognition, proximity sensors, footfall tracking and many other advances make digital POS increasingly well targeted and effective. Plus with its fast turnaround and low cost, it allows us to deploy campaigns quickly and cost effectively.”
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