From fake honey scandals to alarming food tampering incidents that have hospitalised consumers, product recalls are costing brands more than just money. They’re also turning customers off entire product categories and doing major reputational harm. Here’s how your brand can proactively manage recalls with Shping:

What to do when the worst happens
Food fraud and tampering have plagued the food industry for years, and recent scandals have placed these issues in stark relief. The global cost of food fraud is estimated at around $50 billion annually, and a recent fake honey scandal that has flooded the local market shows just how close to home this problem can hit.

Local honey supplier Capilano has recently been accused of selling “adulterated” honey under its Allowrie-branded Mixed Blossom Honey, according to independent tests run by a German lab. This comes in the same week as sewing needles were found in strawberries from Queensland brands Berry Obsession and Berry Luscious, prompting the hospitalisation of one young man and a wide-scale recall of the fruit across three states.

Speaking to RetailBiz, CEO and founder of Shping Gennady Volchek emphasised that recalls can happen to anyone, at any time.

“The reality is that it’s not a new problem, it has been happening for a while. It happens on a regular basis around the world,” he said. “No one is immune, even systems and operations which are properly monitored require an improvement,” he said.

Not only does food fraud and tampering place the consumer at risk, but it also affects the reputation and credibility of the brands that put their name to the product. With consumer trust and brand loyalty more tenuous than ever, a recall or tampering scandal could cripple a brand’s bottom line for years to come.

Strawberry farmers like Donnybrook Berries now have to throw out millions of unaffected berries and forego a season’s worth of income because markets won’t accept their stock.

Capilano honey and the affected strawberry farmers not only have to deal with negative press and costly product recalls: they also have a long road ahead to restore their reputation in the eyes of the consumer.

The silver lining is that food fraud and tampering can be tracked, accounted for and eradicated with blockchain and cloud-based supply chain tracking solutions. In situations like these, full supply chain traceability is a critical part of your crisis comms toolkit.

For brands going into damage control, it’s vital to have full visibility of where this issue occurred in their supply chain to rapidly address the problem and provide peace of mind for the customer. Traceability and transparency lets customers and stakeholders know you’ve quickly identified the source of the problem, and are working to eradicate it and prevent it from happening again.

Managing a recall with Shping
If you need to announce a recall, timely and transparent communication is paramount for public safety, compliance requirements and reputational protection. In the event of a recall, Volchek says upfront communication between brands and consumers is essential.

“Making data more transparent is very important and both industry and consumers could benefit from enabling better communication both from a marketing and security point of view,” he says.

So how can Shping help if the worst happens?

Shping’s track and trace platform gives brands and customers a granular cross-section of a product’s journey from farm to fork. Not only does the platform capture information on product movement, it then goes one step further to give users an in-depth look at who has handled the product, right down to the names of those who packed it. Shping lets brands proactively give their customers the information they need to know, when they need to know it. The app can send out mass alerts and push notifications to any user that has recently scanned an at-risk product, while ensuring unaffected brands are in the clear.

In the case of these recalled strawberries, all it would take is a single scan to determine which batches were at-risk. This simple scan would tell you exactly who had access to the recall batch, and would identify any other batches that had been handled by the same suspects.

Instead of the consumer fear and uncertainty that has now forced farmers to dump millions of unaffected strawberries, Shping gives customers purchasing peace of mind. Our Security platform allows farmers to only remove the affected product rather then destroy most of the good stock due to lack of identification.

When a brand announces a product recall, Shping immediately generates a report disclosing all details in relation to the specific product, including:

• Any other products containing the recalled ingredient.
• Date and place of production.
• Any other ingredients used.
• Production dates and sources for each ingredient.
• Who handled the product from point of production.
• Temperatures the product was exposed to.

This information is sourced from a number of integrated systems, including farmers stock and manufacturing control system, employee time clock systems, surveillance system, certification and lab test results, transport and other freight data, allowing us to provide real-time access to trusted sources. That also means a customer is alerted as soon as they scan a product that’s subject to a recall, and is then given all the information they need to know to take action.

The beauty of the Shping mobile app is that it puts the power into the hands of the consumer. Shoppers can initiate their own checks for product recalls with just the scan of a barcode. That allows you to deliver greater transparency to your consumers as you focus on getting back to business as usual.

To learn more about our security offering, feel free to contact us and speak to one our representatives.

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Food safety is currently at the forefront of every consumer’s mind. As tampering and authenticity scandals continue to dominate the news, shoppers are becoming more concerned about where the products come from. Whether it’s to ensure the safety of food after a contamination scare, or to ensure products were processed in an allergen-free facility, consumers are looking for trust and transparency when it comes to the provenance of their purchases.

Recently, thousands of bottles of Schweppes lemonade were pulled from the shelves thanks to a mislabelling bungle. It’s not just an expensive mistake: it can also damage a brand’s reputation for months and years to come. Provenance tracking helps brands communicate to consumers and provide solutions to problems like these.

Put the customer first
How do you manage and trace your supply chain? How can you know where your products come from? How can you trace the history of a product in the event of a recall? These are all questions brands should be prepared to answer for their customers.

Shping gives both you and your customers peace of mind and full visibility of a product’s journey to the shelves. Integrated with a range of providers like GS1, Shping draws from a number of trusted data sources to provide reliable, trustworthy product information to all parties. As a not-for-profit industry organisation, GS1 has developed standards for farm to fork traceability. This allows both the consumer and the retailer to see where the product was produced, what it was made from, and how it got to the store.

Empowered by technology
The future of supply chain management is decentralised and available anywhere, anytime. Blockchain technology now plays a huge role in facilitating best practice supply chain management to drive efficiency and operational performance. Evolving from traditionally linear supply chain models, track and trace management now is efficient, interconnected and open. This means both the brand and the customer can see information from every stage of the supply chain, not just the one they’re in immediate contact with.

As the transition to a globalised, decentralised supply chain ledger gains traction, companies employing blockchain technology will be at the forefront of smarter tracking and more transparent customer offerings. Shping integrates with a range of industry providers to give you end-to-end visibility of your supply chain, allowing you to eliminate blind spots and ensure you’re always getting the full picture. Shping allows you to cut through the noise and easily deploy emerging blockchain technologies to gain a competitive advantage. Don’t be left behind.

Give back the power
Providing the consumer with the information they need, when they need it, empowers their shopping choices. It also gives the brands that can provide this service a leg up on their competition. Brands that allow consumers to access the who, what, when, where, and how of a product’s journey to the store will have a significant advantage over those that can’t.
Drawing from the world’s largest blockchain database, Shping lets you give your customers full supply chain transparency with a simple scan. Help consumers unlock the power of the barcode and you can turn one-off customers into loyal brand advocates.

Clear channels of communication
Shping allows brands make their supply chains responsive, adaptive and customer-focused so that they can remain agile to changes and challenges in the market. Being able to deploy provenance tracking on-demand, and being able to immediately trace the origins of compromised goods can make all the difference in recall situations.
Remember: product recalls aren’t just costly: they can also impact the hard-earned trust you’ve built with your consumers. To keep loyal customers coming back, transparent and constant communication is crucial. Shping lets you communicate directly with your customers during this time, which means you can offer them important information and updates when and where they need them.

To learn more about our security offering, feel free to contact us and speak to one our representatives.

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In today’s increasingly competitive, saturated consumer goods market, brand loyalty is more elusive than ever. Yet marketing messages can only take you so far: what makes a first-time buyer into a long-time customer?

The answer lies in customer rewards that are engaging, simple and add real value. Here’s how Shping can remove the friction of rewards programs and keep customers coming back for more.

Why rewards work
So why is rewarding a customer so important? Repeat customers are one of a brand’s most valuable assets. Consider this: it costs a business roughly 5-25 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one. These repeat customers are also spending more than new customers: up to 67% more, in fact.

It’s clear that customer rewards schemes end up paying for themselves. The question is, how do you craft a reward scheme that inspires purchase decisions?

Reward your customers to influence their decisions
The psychology of rewards schemes is simple: give customers rewards for certain behaviours, and they’ll have incentive to continue these behaviours. But what makes some rewards schemes more successful than others? Some customers may crave one reward, but ignore another. The key is to provide value in a meaningful, frictionless way, no matter where the customer shops.

Shping helps brands remove the rewards scheme middleman: forget complicated social media campaigns and unwieldy discount codes. With Shping, brands can directly reward the shopper at the point of purchase: whether they’re shopping in a service station, a supermarket or a corner store, consumers can enjoy direct rewards on-the-go.

Crafting rewards that work
With any rewards program, the delivery and communication of the rewards is as important as the reward itself. If there isn’t a direct correlation between a customer’s action and the reward they receive, you immediately lose the power to influence their purchase decisions. What’s more, if a rewards program is too complicated or convoluted for a consumer to easily incorporate into their daily routine, many shoppers simply won’t bother.

Shping removes the friction of rewards schemes by making it simple to communicate and deliver incentives to consumers with minimal interruption., What’s more, Shping allows brands to tailor a range of different rewards to shoppers depending on how many times they’ve scanned a product. That helps keep rewards scheme fresh, and keeps customers engaged and interested at the point of purchase.

So why is it important to mix up the types of rewards you offer? You won’t please every customer with the same incentive, and having different rewards on offer may motivate people to work harder when there are a variety of prizes to be earned. Gamifying the process can also drive results. From getting the kids involved in the weekly shop, to making an often mundane chore more interactive, rewards programs that engage the consumer will keep them coming back for more. Shping gives brands the functionality to create a range of different rewards schemes tailored to different consumers, making the experience more engaging and personal than a static advertisement could ever be.

Connect to your customers in-store 
Any company can offer promo codes and buy-one-get-one free discounts if they want to, but brands that provide value to customers with more than just freebies have the chance to cultivate lasting brand advocates.

To truly understand your customers, you need to understand their values and worldview. Connecting with a customer around these shared values can mean the difference between a one-time shopper and a loyal brand champion.

Shping helps you incorporate aspects of your core brand values into your rewards offerings, then communicates this brand story directly to shoppers in-store, at the point of purchase. Engaging customers in such a personalised way is the key to building rewards scheme that inspires purchases in the short-term and cultivates lasting customers in the long-term.

If you’re looking for a way to connect with and reward your customers directly, book a time with our Shping team for a free demonstration.

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Are you dropping the ball with your customer interactions? Unless you have the shopper in mind at every touchpoint, you could be missing out on valuable opportunities to improve customer satisfaction. 

What’s worse, if you don’t have control of your touchpoints then a misdirected advertisement, billing mistake or warranty message may turn customers off shopping with you in future.

Optimise every communication you have with the consumer to meaningfully connect at multiple points of the campaign lifecycle – not just before the point of purchase, but also doing purchase and after purchase. Here’s how Shping can help manage touchpoints to get a single customer view:

Customised touchpoints matter
The chance to truly connect with customers is what most marketers strive for. Engaging with consumers before the point of purchase is hugely effective in inspiring sales, but continuing to provide connection during and after purchase inspires lasting loyalty. Knowing what your customer already knows about your brands allows you to tell them something new each time they engage across different touchpoints.

Capitalise on the opportunity to connect with your customer at all points of the campaign lifecycle, and you’ll convert one-time shoppers into repeat customers.

Customised touchpoints are a brand’s chance to connect with customers at every stage of the campaign lifecycle, from start to finish. Shping removes the friction of delivering these custom messages with a seamless campaign workflow that can be completely man aged in the one platform.

During purchase, we can tailor push notifications based on geolocation. This is a great way to incentivise customers with a discount code or rewards offers. These rewards can be easily and seamlessly delivered directly to the consumer through the Shping app: no need for mailing list segmentation, complicated purchase tracking or unwieldy discount codes.

Plus we can deliver bespoke content based on the number of scans the users has previously made (taking into account past engagement and posted reviews) – if they are further along in their consideration stage, we can serve content on how the products can be used, for example in a recipe.

 

Following a purchase, you can use Shping to send them a range of ‘To-Do’s like signing up to your EDM or registering for a warranty. Consider using your To-Do’s to run customer engagement surveys and collect feedback: this is a great opportunity to facilitate a two-way discussion between your brand and the consumer.

Take control of your touchpoints
Your brand story unfolds over a range of customer touchpoints. Some of these – like mobile and web advertisements, EDM’s and physical products – you can control. Some – like online customer reviews and in-store experiences – you can’t.

You can, however, use Shping to reduce the chance of a bad customer experience.

Proactively minimise the likelihood of poor reviews by sending customers a notification encouraging feedback and photos of your product a few days after purchase. This lets customers share honest product feedback with you – rather than on a third-party forum or social platform – and helps you directly address any customer service issues as they arise.

You can also take control of in-store experiences by using the Shping app to directly connect with the customer at the point of purchase. This ensures unified messaging across all retailers and locations based on your pre-set messaging structure. It’s a far more elegant – and reliable – solution than having to negotiate with individual retailers on signage and point of sale logistics.

 

Keep your messaging relevant 

From videos to sponsored content, social media and native advertising, there are so many ways for a customer to experience your brand that it can be easy to lose track of them all. When this happens, it’s easy to make a misstep in your touchpoints that puts a customer off. From an incorrect reminders to an irrelevant EDM, these mistakes can discourage a customer from engaging with your brand again.

Avoid these mistakes and have your touchpoints tracked and managed through the one platform. Shping allows you to seamlessly tailor video content delivery, To-Do notifications, and follow-up reminders that you can set-and-forget. That way, you can focus on pinpointing your messaging and making sure every touchpoint contributes to a great customer journey.

Let us show you the power of Shping for your brand. Book a time for a free demonstration.

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In today’s digital-first world, content is king: consumers want immersive, multi-channel content instead of static banner advertisements.

In fact,  80% of traffic will be driven by video content in the next year, according to Cisco. When you also consider that 95% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service, it becomes clear that multimedia content is a necessity not just a nice-to-have for brands looking to reach consumers.

Deliver the content you’ve already created

Constantly creating content can be expensive and time-consuming. Instead of using your content once then moving it to the archive folder, leverage your existing assets to improve the customer experience. You’ll get more mileage from your content, and your customers will get more opportunities to learn about your products.

Shping lets you deliver the content you’ve already created – whether that’s videos, GIFs or images – directly to the consumer at different stages of their purchasing journey. For example, you can deliver a video content series to a customer each time they scan – each scan will deliver a new video as they learn more and more about your product.

Shping gives you the power to make the most of your existing assets to deliver different levels of messaging to customers at different stages in their shopping journey. That means you can directly target your customers with the relevant content you’ve got on-hand, and getting more return on investment from the content you’ve created.

Reward interactions

On top of letting you deliver personalised, targeted content to customers in-store, the Shping app also rewards customers for interacting with this content. We believe that if you reward customers for their time and engagement, they are far more likely to respond positively to your brand and products – and far more likely to understand your brand story – than if they had simply encountered a promotional poster in-store.

Rewarding your customers for their time shows that you care about their purchasing decisions and value their engagement: in fact, a recent study found that this sense of “wantedness” was a deciding factor in whether a consumer would purchase a product. In the study, the majority (79%) of shoppers said brands have to actually demonstrate that they care, understand and are committed to earning their business before they would consider purchasing their products. With Shping, brands can show customers they care by offering rewards, promotions and incentives for interacting with their content. Not only does Shping provide a platform to leverage your existing content, it also provides consumers with an incentive to interact with it.

Shping can help you make better brand decisions by leveraging your content at every stage of the customer journey. To learn more, book a demo with our team.

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We live in a content-first world: instead of being served generic advertisements, shoppers want brands that can communicate with them in unique, value-added and engaging ways.

Whether you’re leveraging old content or creating custom assets, targeting the consumer with relevant content at each stage of the purchasing journey keeps them engaged and coming back for more. In fact, a recent survey by Salsify found that 78% of consumer were more likely to buy with a more personally relevant product page which included a variety of content like images, video, text and reviews.

From telling your brand story in a fun and engaging way, to giving consumers the power to share their reviews and images of your product in action, content plays a vital role in influencing purchasing decisions. Here’s how different types of content can inspire consumers:

Product info

Shping gives shoppers the important product information they need to make better purchasing decisions when they need it most. Whether a customer is checking for potential allergens, or wants to know the origins of the product in their hands, Shping draws from the world’s largest consumer facing database to serve product information to consumers on-demand at the critical point before purchase.

 

Certification

As shoppers become more savvy, there is a greater push for brands to be certified against a range of industry standards: whether that’s gluten free or heart-safe for the health conscious, or organic, fair trade and cruelty free for the ethical shopper. The modern consumer cares about the impact of their purchasing decisions, and brands that can prove they are certified against relevant industry standards will have a leg up on their competition.

Video content

Video content is a key tool in your consumer marketing arsenal. Short, engaging videos are a great way to inform shoppers in a fun and immersive way.

Looking to leverage multiple videos to instruct and entertain your customers? Shping allows you to deliver different video content depending on how many times a customer has scanned and interacted with your product. That means you can keep ongoing touchpoints and engage consumers at each stage of the purchasing journey.

Reviews

Researching reviews is an important stage many shoppers go through when purchasing a new product. Recent research has found 66% of consumers trust a brand with many positive reviews.

But most of the time, finding relevant reviews takes dedicated research and filtering: that’s time most shoppers don’t have while on their regular grocery shop.

Here’s where Shping can help. With the scan of a barcode, Shping shows relevant product reviews so that consumers have the information they need at their fingertips and on-command.

 

Shping encourages users to add product reviews by rewarding each reviewer with our very own cryptocurrency: Shping Coins. Brands can take advantage of this and accumulate more reviews by offering extra Coins to consumers who review and rate their product.

User generated images

Seeing a product being used in real-world situations can often give consumers the confidence they need to complete the purchasing journey. Research found that 73% of consumers liked to see 3+ images when shopping for any product online. With Shping, shoppers can see pictures other users have uploaded of your product in action, along with DIY’s, tips and hacks for using it at home.

Targeting consumers with this relevant user-generated content before the critical point of purchase can mean the difference between your product staying on the shelves or making its way to the checkout.

See how Shping can enhance your brand for instore shoppers.

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In a digital-first world, connecting with your customers is about more than just having a provocative advertising campaign or the most eye-catching designs. The modern consumer has learned to instinctively tune out the noise of traditional advertising: from automatically skipping YouTube advertisements, to changing the station when a radio promotion comes on. Online marketing tactics like banner advertisements fare even worse: with 25% of desktop users using adblocking software, getting your hard-earned advertising spend to reach consumers is trickier than ever before.

 

Here’s where Shping can help. With the ability to connect directly to customers in-store and at that crucial moment before purchase, Shping lets you share relevant promotions, personalised offers and tell your brand story to shoppers that are actively engaging with your product. This is all done through the Shping app, which consumers access through their smartphones. Smartphones are now becoming a key tool for marketing to the consumer: 89% of people are likely to recommend a brand after a positive brand experience on mobile, and people today have twice as many interactions with brands on mobile than anywhere else, according to research from Google.

Connect where it matters most

To effectively reach the consumer, don’t make them come to you. Instead, meet them in the spaces they’re already occupying: their phones. Shoppers are already using their smartphones in-store to enhance the shopping experience: 40% are checking product prices with their phones, while 33% are looking up customer reviews in the aisles. With the Shping app offering this information and more with just the scan of a barcode, brands have the unique opportunity to target consumers at the crucial point before purchase, while they’re directly interacting with your product.

 

Shping uses this unique form of permissions marketing to make sure your brand messages are targeted and relevant to the consumer. These messages are delivered with each scan of your product’s barcode, which means they’re seen by shoppers who are already engaged and receptive to your product – they want to know more about its story, and any promotions or offers that are available. Take this opportunity to tell leverage your best content, tell your brand story, and captivate the shopper to inspire purchase.

Keep it personalised

More and more, consumers are becoming irritated and disengaged from advertising that’s irrelevant and disruptive to their purchasing journey. When you consider 48% of shoppers have actually left a brand’s website and purchased from a competitor because of a poorly personalised experience, the importance of relevant marketing messaging becomes clear. With Shping, you’ll know exactly which items are being scanned, and how many times they’ve been scanned. That means you have control over the messaging, promotions and rewards you can provide to the consumer at each stage of their purchasing journey.

READ MORE: Leverage your existing assets with Shping

This opens up the potential for a myriad of personalised content and offers to be delivered directly to the consumer while they’re actively engaging with your product. Having these personalised experiences can also be the key to converting one-time shoppers into brand loyalists: 80% of consumers say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalised experiences, according to recent research conducted by Edelman.

Taking advantage of your consumer’s smartphones in-store is a great way to connect directly with shoppers who are already interested in your product. Providing a mobile-optimised purchasing journey not only helps the consumer make better buying decisions, it also helps you win repeat shoppers and loyal brand champions.

Shping can help you connect directly with the customer in-store. To learn more, book a time to receive a free demonstration on how Shping can help your brand.

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