IDEAS AND INNOVATIONS ABOUND AT INTERNATIONAL LAWN AND GARDEN SHOW

spoga+gafa, the world’s largest trade show for gardening, outdoor furniture, equestrian and barbecues, drew 40,000 people domestically and from abroad to Cologne, Germany, last fall. It featured the latest trends in outdoor living, furniture and tools, urban gardening and grilling, spread over an incredible 2.5 million square feet of exhibition space.

he show, which included a smaller segment for equestrian products and accessories, spanned almost a dozen buildings, plus outdoor spaces that take into consideration barbecue manufacturers busily grilling everything from Bratwurst and beef tenderloin to pizza.

There was no shortage of new products from vendors in every category ranging from patio furniture, gardening supplies, seeds and live goods to outdoor power equipment, pet products and landscape materials—many seeking distribution in North America.

A major theme of the show was urban gardening, the concept of providing products and garden strategies that fit in limited land and smaller homes. Innovations included a patio set in a box, outdoor furniture sized for children and products for creating “living walls” of plants. Two entire halls were devoted to barbecues and grilling accessories.

Canadians turned out, but not in significant numbers. One exception, however, was the barbecue category. Three major Canadian-based suppliers all had large booths: Napoleon, Broil King and

Nathan Wheeler, director of European sales for Waterloo, Ontario-based Broil King, said spoga+gafa is “the most important show in Europe.” One building away, Chris Schroeter, co-CEO of Napoleon, in Barrie, Ont., had a large contingent of salespeople at his booth, many sporting the Canadian flag on their shirts. He and his team were presenting the latest models, many already launched in Canada.

Once again, the show proved an important draw for dealers, buyers and suppliers from around the world. The mix of new products, networking and information sessions created a winning combination for attendees.

You think your company has problems with shrinkage?

Home Depot could be losing $750,000 per $1 billion in sales per year, according to a recent special report on loss prevention that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published.

Shoplifting is a $50 billion “business” in the U.S., where one in 11 Americans has stolen something from retail outlets, with 46 percent of the thieves admitting to repeat offenses, according to a survey of 15,000 shoplifters by the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention.

Canadians might not be quite as lightfingered: one estimate finds one shoplifter for every 35 citizens. But that doesn’t mean Canadian home improvement and building supply retailers are less vigilant. Even if their loss prevention practices sometimes

BY JOHN CAULFIELD

fall short, shrinkage from theft and damage is never far from their minds.

“We don’t do enough loss prevention training,” admits Brad Swanson, who owns Swanson’s Home Hardware Building Centre in Kitchener, Ont., which operates a hardware store and lumberyard located in a tough part of town. Like many retailers, Swanson’s store relies on camera surveillance to discourage thieves. It also keeps power tools—a common target—behind locked glass cases.

Harris Home Hardware in London, Ont., has cameras watching every aisle and its exterior from all sides. Owner Ron Harris says he plans to try out spider wrap, a wired alarm that can be attached to high-theft items like tools and faucets.

Not every dealer is comfortable with these deterrents, however. “I don’t like to treat 99 percent of my customers like criminals just because one percent is,” says Russ Jones, owner of Coast Builders RONA in Sechelt, B.C., which operates two building supply yards and a kitchen, bath and appliance store. Jones says he keeps “expensive stuff” that thieves covet, like Nest thermostats, behind or near the service counter.

Jones and other dealers concur that the best loss prevention tool is an observant employee. “Just good customer service, and keeping an eye on the customers,” is how Mandi Cox, floor manager of NorthStar Hardware and Building Supply in Invermere, B.C., describes how her store contains shrinkage.

Getting Employees On Board

Harris Home Hardware’s 21 employees are required to watch loss prevention videos produced by Dunk & Associates and provided through Home Hardware Stores. The dealer counts its store’s inventory twice a year, and certain departments—tools, small appliances, housewares, seasonal— more often. Whatever it’s doing is working, because Harris Home Hardware keeps its annual shrinkage down to between $15,000 and $18,000 (it does $3.3 million in sales).

Swanson’s 92 employees are its “eyes and ears” when it comes to loss prevention, says Swanson, and are a big reason why the store’s annual shrinkage has dipped to 0.25 percent, from 1.5 percent a few years ago. Swanson attributes that improvement to several factors, including “hiring better people,” and “maintaining a clean, wellorganized environment.”

When it comes to minimizing shrinkage from product damage, Swanson’s yard workers regularly rotate lumber piles to limit warping and spiking. They also help customers load products into their vehicles. “It often comes down to customer service.”

Jones at Coast Builders recalls that when Marvin Ellison took over at RONA’s parent company, Lowe’s Cos., in May 2018, he singled out three goals for the stores: a strong in-stock position, clean and safe stores and great customer service. “All of these play into loss prevention,” says Jones.

He realized that his own stores were purchasing too much inventory, “which can lead to mistakes, damage, etc.,” he says. And the best thing a retailer can do to control shrinkage, says Jones, is “to keep your staff engaged, so that if something goes missing, it’s noticeable.”

Sometimes, though, it’s the employees who need watching. A few of the dealers interviewed for this article spoke of workers they caught “borrowing” money from their stores’ cash registers. “After we bought our hardware store last year, we had to clean that up,” says Swanson.

Tech Supplements Service

Technology is playing a much bigger role in selling, so it’s not surprising when retailers turn to tech to control shrinkage.

Loss Prevention magazine recounted how Canadian Tire last year had added images of products scanned at point-of-sale so cashiers could visually identify that the UPC of the product scanned matches the image of the product that appears on the screen. In an email, Cathy Kurzbock, a Canadian Tire spokesperson, elaborated that staff workers monitoring the stores’ self-checkout kiosks have access to the screen showing the product being scanned. The machines are also programmed with corresponding product weights, so if what’s scanned doesn’t match, the attendant is alerted.

Racheal Awe, Canadian Tire’s associate vice president of in-store technology, told Loss Prevention that this system deters shoplifters from ticket-price switching, and has saved the company “millions of dollars.”

Independents Find Their Own Solutions

Most independent home improvement dealers’ strategies are nowhere near this sophisticated. For example, few are doing much about the threat of cybertheft other than depend on POS vendors to equip their machines with antitheft software and to back up transactions.

One exception is Econo Lumber, the largest lumberyard in north central Saskatchewan, with a 60,000-square-foot store, a 40,000-square-foot outdoor storage area, and a 26,400-square-foot drivethrough warehouse. The Prince Albertbased company has an on-site technology specialist whose job includes keeping Econo aware of email hacks, phishing and “ensuring we have excellent software on our systems so this doesn’t take place,” says Angelo Minier, Econo’s director of corporate finance.

Technology is seeping into other dealers’ operational streams, in small and big ways. Cox of NorthStar Hardware & Building Supplies says her company was planning to install a computer at its outdoor gatehouse for price checking and inventory control.

Coast Builders RONA is installing a drive-through checkout kiosk inside a converted shipping container, where products that are tagged can be scanned and customers can pay without leaving their vehicles, rather than having to go inside of the store. Jones says this kiosk should be active by February, and he expects it will help reduce product damage, too.

Econo Lumber’s network of 25 highresolution cameras provides video that, on a number of occasions, has resolved disputes with shoppers. Minier notes that a customer recently came into the store claiming that he hadn’t picked up the 2x4s he bought the previous day, even though the store’s paperwork showed otherwise. “We looked at the camera footage and saw that he did, in fact, take the items.” Upon reviewing that footage, the customer “realized that he had ‘forgotten’ that he picked up [the lumber],” says Minier, who notes that video surveillance is also useful when accidents in the yard occur.

Minier says Econo Lumber has found that “human error”—such as shipping or loading mistakes—is the primary cause of shrinkage. Consequently, no customer gets loaded without proper paperwork. If there’s a discrepancy in the order’s unit count or billing, the customer needs to go back into the store to resolve the problem.

Throughout the year, Econo conducts ongoing inventory counts, going as far in some departments as to count actual quantities on hand to see if they coincide with what the store’s sales system indicates. If something is amiss, Econo does a thorough investigation that includes speaking with the employees who sold and loaded the merchandise.

Whether they can afford sophisticated technology or training programs, home improvement dealers are waking up to the reality that lacking a loss prevention strategy costs them a great deal in the long run. That means finding solutions that meet both their needs and their budget. The efforts upfront are sure to save a number of headaches in the long-run.

BY LYNDON MADDEN

ne of the more contemporary methods marketers use to follow consumers and measure return on marketing investment is called the “funnel of conversion”. The basic premise is that consumers follow a sequence of exposures leading them to the decision to buy a certain brand, or from a certain place. The abbreviated version goes like this: awareness; interest; consideration; intent; purchase; loyalty; advocacy.

Awareness is the largest (widest) part of the funnel. It’s about getting people to be aware you exist. The bottom of the funnel, where fewer consumers are, but where you want them all to be, is purchase. Loyalty and advocacy are post-purchase benefits— provided you can build a relationship with the consumer.

Actions are taken in marketing at every step of this funnel to drive consumers towards the purchase end of the funnel. An action creating awareness might be sponsorship of an event, or perhaps something in public relations, letting people know your brand exists.

As you push consumers from awareness to purchase, the most important thing you can do is look at your purchase journey. Consider how a consumer starts to think about a purchase from you. As you take steps from first exposures to garnering consumer intent and purchase, you need to make that experience as linear as possible.

Keep It Consistent

So how do you make it linear? For every step in your purchase journey, you need to have a consistent message, tone and visuals. Watch out for slight missteps that can be made in the process, such as a flyer not matching in-store materials. That could allow consumers to stray from the breadcrumb trail you’ve laid for them.

Let’s say you’re a company offering a great product, at a fair price, but your big focus is on quality and reliability. In order to keep your tone consistent through the purchase journey, you need to know your message and continue to speak to it at each interaction you have with your target consumer. If, for example, you start with a message that your product is great quality and very reliable, your focus is not on price. When a consumer sees your product in-store, and they are met with flashing lights on “low-low prices”, then you have suddenly changed the message and detracted from all the efforts you made to build that message.

In more simple terms, your brand should have a consistent message, and it should be reflected in your advertising. And then your advertising should reflect your message in your digital exposure, your digital exposure should reflect it in your in-store experience and your in-store experience should reflect it right back to the start. This would be a great consistent message as consumers travel through that purchase funnel with you.

Deliver On Your Customer Expectations

If you take some time to truly put yourself in your customers’ shoes and consider the touchpoints they will make on your brand from first exposure to purchase, you can seek to make that experience linear. Where is the consumer exposed to your brand? Do you have a website? Do you have a flyer? Do you have an e-blast list or mailing list? Do your in-store materials reflect all those external sources with the same message?

Innovation Quality Reliability www.bmfonline.com 905-332-6652

I have seen newspaper ads with cheeky catchphrases to lure the consumer in, but that don’t line up with the brand’s in-store personality. This type of misstep subconsciously throws the consumer off. This is all about following through on the consumer expectations you are building throughout the funnel of conversion.

Another great example of this is Home Depot’s former slogan “You can do it. We can help”. This is the line that retailer used far and wide to create awareness about