Avoiding the “30-Day Decline”

We had several customers opt-in for a refresh of their redemption areas prior to Spring Break season. It’s a great way to make sure you have high-value products in your redemption area that drive game play and enhance customer experience.

But now on the tail-end of Spring Break season, how do the spaces compare to what they looked like before the break rush? Gone are the days of neatly themed sections and tightly aligned product spacing. “Just 30 days ago it looked great,” dismayed voices have said over the phone. 😩

Instead of becoming a victim of the “30-Day Decline,” we want to empower you to get back to the basics of product theme and display management to restore the glory. To overcome the decline, you must understand how it happens:

1 | Changing of the guard. For many of you, there are several employees who work the redemption counter over the course of a month. Not all are going to be “into” retail merchandising and redemption management. Sometimes they’re just filling in for another employee at the last minute.

A couple nights of different employees running the counter and suddenly things start looking a little off. We recommend creating a simple checklist for employees to look at when starting a shift. It should sum up how to manage the space. Here’s an example:

• All hanging toys need to be pulled to the front of the peg at the top of each hour.
• If something sells out, move half the items next to it onto the empty peg. Be sure the toy you are replacing it with has a similar ticket amount.
• The redemption area is divided into sections. Each section is themed. Please keep toys within their themes. See the plan-o-gram by the counter if you need help.

Something as simple as a 3-point checklist and a plan-o-gram will go a long way in helping staff understand the look you’re trying to maintain during a busy night.

2 | Re-ordering outside of a category. If you order Storyboards, at some point in the month you may try to re-order an item and it’s out-of-stock or discontinued. Redemption Plus takes things into consideration when creating our Storyboards. Things like the number of centers ordering a product, how quickly the product “moves” off shelves, and if the item is seasonal or not — to name a few.

We follow this set of data to make decisions on which items to discontinue and which ones to buy more of. (“Backed by Analytics” is more than just a semi-catchy tagline!) We recognize that sometimes some toys sell faster than we anticipate and out-of-stocks occur. We’re working on that! 😊

When you are trying to fill an empty spot in your Storyboard, here are two tips to help you maintain high-quality merchandising: category and size. Yes, ticket values count, but picking items based purely on ticket values is an ingredient to the 30-Day Decline.

To find an item with the same category on our site (on the left side of our website) and then look at the size of the product.

For example, if we were to happen to run out of the Giant Flamingo Float (320489) in the Sun’s Out Fun’s Out Storyboard, you could replace this with the Giant Balloon Animal Float (320786).

3 | Spacing gets really weird. You may notice throughout the month the pegs get further and further apart. This typically occurs when you have staff members who are replacing items that aren’t of similar size and just trying to make it work on the fly. They get an A for improvising, but it’s not quite cutting it long-term. Post a plan-o-gram somewhere where they can see it as an example of what your wall is supposed to look like. Even if the items have changed, there’s a road map present to help them get “back to the basics” of retail merchandising.

Moral of the story:

The 30-Day Decline seems to happen in the blink of the eye. You wear a lot of hats and can’t be everywhere all the time. We get it. But during a busy season, it’s imperative to empower your staff with all the know-how to ensure a redemption wall that works just as hard as you do.

As always, we’re here to help! Simply reach out to your Account Executive or Account Manager to ask for a Virtual Counterset after Spring Break is over.

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