Target’s Walker Underscores the Importance of Data

Le’Spencer Walker, director of Target Accelerators Activation & Growth, shared tips for brands that are looking to gain space on Target’s shelves, during the Summer Fancy Food Show session "Unlocking Success: Empowering Small Brands to Win Through Data with (included)," Sunday.

"If someone comes in with too much art or feeling and they don’t know about their numbers, they’re not ready, but if they have both that’s what will drive longevity," he said. "It’s about performance and productivity and how are the sales doing. If you’re in 50 stores how many units per store are you selling per week? What are your margins? Get down to the details and how to drive sales to get more stores."

Panelist Kathy Yuh of growth equity firm VWG Partners, urged brands to develop a good sense for who their customer is.

"Even if you’re a young brand and don’t have big distribution, get a sense for who your customer is and make sure you vocalize that with a retailer like Target since they want to know where to place you and in which Target store," she said. "When you have time with their buyer you have to explain why your product belongs in Target and what will surprise or delight these customers."

Nona Lim of nona lim foods said that even when her company was very young and she was demoing her product at a local co-op she used the opportunity to gather data about her shoppers.

"I asked them ‘why did they like the product.’ I like to talk to everyone at my booth [at the Fancy Food Shows] and find out what they like about it and why and that is a free way of getting data and you can weave it into a much richer story when presenting to Walmart or Target," she said.

Edricco Reina, managing director at data provider SPINS said "we all know that brands have a background story, but when the bricks hit the road it’s the data that matters. They are the facts and buying decisions are made mostly off facts," he said.

SPINS has launched SPINS Ignite which is free data related to categories and subcategories. "It really helps emerging brands get a feel for what data looks like," he said.

Another free data gathering option is leveraging social media and if a company has a store locator on its website, they can glean information from it, he said. Brands can also search retailers’ annual reports and see if their company and product fit with what they’re seeking to do in the future.