Advantage Group invites vendors to rate their retailer partners and identify top priorities

INTERNATIONAL. Advantage Group International is seeking input for its annual survey on what vendors see as the key priorities for their retail partners.

In the 2016 edition of its Advantage Travel Retail Mirror Report, the top two priorities remained unchanged from the previous year. These were the ability for stores to ‘sustain an acceptable level of in-store availability of products’ and to ‘work productively with [vendors] to build profitable business for both parties’.

Advantage 2016

Moving up to third in the list of priorities was the retailer’s ability to ‘implement agreed upon business plans’. Advantage said that while the practice had become more important compared to 2015, operators had also improved compared to 2015 average scores.

“Implementing agreed upon business plans also happens to be a key driver of overall top performance in the Advantage Mirror Report; simply – the best performing operators follow through on commitments with their vendor partners,” said Advantage Group International’s Benoit Douguet.

Advantage launched the 2017 Advantage Mirror Report last week, sending surveys out to vendors. It said that in just a few days it had received over 100 completed surveys, with a “couple of hundred” more started. Douguet stated: “Suppliers have an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to their customers through the programme, and I am sure some of them can’t wait for the yearly survey, to share their wins and concerns.”

Benoit Douguet & Nestor Sanajko
Advantage Group International’s Benoit Douguet (left) and Nestor Sanajko

Advantage Senior Manager, Global Business Development Nestor Sanajko commented: “The best retailers have an ability to confirm requests quickly, perhaps maintaining a lean structure, they provide agility, flexibility, adhere to their timelines and deadlines. For the global operators the best are willing to adapt to the local consumers and implement global agreements across to all their retail outlets.”

Vendors who would like to participate in the 2017 study should email bdouguet@advantagegroup.com or phone  +33 (0)6 11 19 25 53.

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