Challenge: A major retail coffee brand recognized that it might have an opportunity to increase sales of its retail merchandise in store.

Objective: To understand new opportunities for expanding the merchandising business, evaluating potential new retail items and how to most effectively merchandise those items in the store.

Solution: Plan-it conducted an exploratory study to assess attitudes and gauge reactions to the brand’s current and potential retail merchandise, and explored the most effective ways to motivate new retail purchases. A number of visual and projective techniques were used as part of this work. Customers had the opportunity to shop simulated shelves/counters and provide feedback on items that would attract their interest and create their own ideal store merchandise.

Result: Based on learning and insights from this research, Plan-it made recommendations for an overall retail strategy, and tactical suggestions for product development, merchandising and communications, which were later launched across retail stores.