“We met with RetailSonar when we decided to optimise our flyer distribution”, says Joeri De Waele, partner and co-owner of the toy and party shop Fun.

The toy shop chain Fun has experienced a number of challenging years. Fun wants to shift from being a pure toy shop to a retailer that sells crafts materials and party items. The margins are a little higher in this sector and it is less competitive than the toy world. In this phase, it is vital that they make the right strategic choices to achieve further growth.

Fun takes a very data-oriented approach to all its marketing activities. “After an initial discussion with RetailSonar, it soon became clear that we had met with the right partner. We chose to order a strategic study. RetailSonar took a very detailed look at all our distribution blocks (BD codes). They linked these data to the average sales that we had in these blocks. In regions, where we did not have sufficient significant data, we conducted additional cash register research at their request.”

There are two ways to optimise your flyer distribution: either you try to do more with the same budget or you try to cut costs, without impacting your sales figures. “Fun chose the second option. RetailSonar advised us which distribution blocks to stop flyering and which blocks were worth adding.”

"We were able to cut costs by 14% without impacting our sales figures. On the contrary even, in some shops we generated up to 2% higher sales as a result.”

“For new shop locations, the adage that to measure is to know also applies. That is why we asked RetailSonar to calculate the ideal distribution zones for one of our new stores.” Fun also takes the rise of online shopping into account for this. “We have noticed that the sales through our online store have significantly increased. We also ordered a study from RetailSonar for this, to see which blocks were too far outside a specific shop region, where promoting our online store and collect services made more sense.”

What would Joeri say about RetailSonar to companies that don’t know the platform yet? “We chose to work with them because it became clear from the outset that this is a professional team with a lot of expertise. You can sense they really substantiate their approach, and that is why they make a difference. I don’t know anybody else that could be a sparring partner on this level. And they’re fast too!”