Sample Brand Narrative & Messaging Guide

Park Merchandising

Brand Narrative and Messaging Guide

Core Brand Message

This message should be at the heart of all marketing and communications about Park Merchandising.

In an ever more automated and anonymous B2B retail marketplace, Park Merchandising brings timeless shopkeeper sensibilities to data-driven commerce at scale. As a leading provider of scan-based trading (SBT) and product management services, we bridge the widening gap between retailers and suppliers, maximizing profit while reducing friction, loss, and risk.

Integrating digital intelligence with high-touch, hands-on human attention, we help you provide the products consumers need, want, and love, right in their neighborhood stores. From managing store compliance and inventory to tracking sales and analyzing demand, we scale personalized product management to national chain brick-and-mortar stores, unlocking added opportunities and value.

Whatever you make, wherever you sell, whoever your customers may be, Park Merchandising will help you prosper.

Value Proposition

What value do customers receive, and why is Park Merchandising uniquely qualified to deliver this value?

Park Merchandising helps retailers, brokers, and suppliers prosper by integrating timeless shopkeeper sensibilities with data-driven commerce at scale. Our comprehensive product management and scan-based trading services bridge the widening gap between retailers and suppliers, maximizing profit while reducing friction, loss, and risk.

Unique Selling Proposition & Sales Points

What unique and meaningful benefits does Park Merchandising offer to its customers? Why should customers choose Park Merchandising over the competition?

Data alone is not enough. Product management needs a human touch.

• High-touch, hands-on product management services bridge the widening gap between retailers and suppliers, optimizing operations and maximizing profit.
• Innovative scan-based trading technology reduces friction, loss, and risk.
• Trusted in more than 30,000 stores, Park Merchandising is a preferred scan-based trading and product management provider for mass-market chains and boutique stores alike, with a commitment to personalized customer service for all.
• With more than 20 years of product management experience, Park Merchandising understands the shelf-level realities that help retailers and suppliers move more of what consumers want.
• Product management is personal to us. Our founders started out placing music and videos in a half dozen stores, driving a single truck all over Georgia to manage inventory and ensure that every display was perfect. Our livelihood depended on it, and we know the same is true for every one of our customers today.

Audience Personas (One sample of several created)

The Retailer

Description

Key influencer/evangelist for PM. Many are already sold on the idea of SBT but we want them to advocate for PM to their buyers. Ideal target sells high-volume, high-theft items, since PM helps them track those and reduce inventory shrinkage.

Needs

• • Solutions to more accurately anticipate consumer demand

• • Solutions to better prepare for a return to in-store shopping, post-pandemic

• • Solutions to facilitate a smooth BOPUS experience for customers

• • Solutions to nurture and increase customer loyalty

• • Scalable software designed specifically for retail to improve processes and visibility

• • To present measurable results and ROI to leadership (“impress the boss”)

• • To reduce inventory costs

• • To make less of a financial commitment for a higher volume of goods

• • To deliver a flawless omnichannel shopping experience, where, when and how customers want to buy

• • To create personalized, multi-channel touchpoints to attract and retain customers

• • To reduce costs across the supply chain

• • To increase the number of in-stocks and reduce inventory shrinkage

• • To increase basket size and overall share of wallet

• • To adapt product lineup seamlessly to accommodate seasonal changes

Enemies

• • Store compliance

• • Inventory shrinkage due to customer/employee theft, manual error, shortcomings in ERP/tracking system, etc.

• • Cash tied up in in-store inventories (carrying costs)

• • Disparate systems that limit and/or distort internal communications across departments

• • General unavailability/unreliability of inventory that leads to out-of-stocks and depleted inventory as a result of supply chain volatility:

    • • Parts shortages that lead to a lack of inventory (for example, the current microchip shortage blocking the availability of some electronic devices)
    • • Port congestion and driver shortages that hold goods hostage and create shipping delays (while also driving pricing)
    • • Other issues that increase the number of out-of-stocks and slow time-to-market

• • Labor shortages (limited capacity to manage products, oversee inventory and handle merchandising)

• • Time and costs associated with recruiting, training and retaining new staff

• • The “Prime Effect”: increasingly high consumer expectations for availability and free 2-day delivery

• • A rise in consumer-driven privacy preferences that limit digital advertising opportunities and block valuable data that would reveal consumer shopping preferences

What Do They Think Now?

“Scan-based trading is definitely the answer to our inventory challenges, and we’re confident that this is the way of the future for more efficiently sourcing and servicing products according to consumer demand. But does it really make a difference which provider I choose? What sets Park Merchandising apart?”

What Do We Want Them to Think, Feel, and Do?

Think

“Park Merchandising is our go-to scan-based trading and product management provider thanks to the enormous value-add of their data capabilities. We can get products to our customers faster and reduce our inventory, yes, but we’re also getting expert help with managing products and business analytics for long-term agility and precision.”

Feel

Prepared
Confident
Savvy

Do

Advocate for SBT within organization. Insist on the PM solution with brokers as the SBT solution of choice. Champion to peers.

Positioning Statements

How does the value proposition serve the specific needs of target markets, as identified in the audience personas?

Brand Story

Here’s a deeper dive into the background of the brand, how it came to be, where it is now, and where it would like to go.

Park Merchandising co-founder and president Mike Parkerson spent many years growing and running a wholesale and retail music company, The Music Network, distributing to individual stores across the Southeast along with 120 of their own retail music stores. His step-son, Park Merchandising co-founder and managing director Kendall White, grew up learning from him about the music business and retail product management.

By high school, White was working at the warehouse, getting further educated on inventory management and the supply chain. Later, as a student at Georgia Tech earning a degree in management, he spent his summers and extra time working as an assistant to the loss prevention director.

Then, in 2001, Napster peaked, and digital music delivery was soon decimating music stores across the country. Within two years, Parkerson had to close down the business.

Parkerson and White had lost their primary customers, but along the way they developed deep expertise in product management and merchandising services. They set about reinventing their business model, creating Park Merchandising to serve retail brick-and-mortar stores that were more resilient in the digital age.

They saw that, despite the rise of Napster and later Netflix (and all the rest of the digital content disruptors), there was still substantial demand for physical copies of music and movies. So they partnered with Movies U Buy to place DVDs and CDs in general retail stores, under vendor-managed inventory agreements and later scan-based trading agreements.

Dollar General agreed to let them sell music and movies in a single store. That one store became seven, with White personally driving to each every week. Then it was 30 stores, including two dozen of the larger Dollar General Market locations. Then more than 50. Today Park Merchandising manages products in over 17,000 Dollar General stores.

Along the way, Parkerson and White saw opportunities to expand beyond prerecorded entertainment content, managing everything from magazines and historical documents to electronics and bubble gum. They also expanded into many other mass-market and boutique stores across the country, currently serving more than 30,000 brick-and-mortar locations.

The old days of White driving to every store in a company truck weren’t sustainable as the company scaled. Park Merchandising invested heavily in technology, developing proprietary software to track store compliance and analyze inventory, and consolidate billing and sales. They also built partnerships with in-store merchandisers who could serve as their eyes and hands.

In the midst of all the growth, automation, and IT, Park Merchandising has maintained their personal approach to product management and the same attention to every detail of distribution, delivery, and display. With diligence and dedication, they help retailers and suppliers provide the products consumers need, want, and love, so that every store, and every supplier, can prosper.

Brand Personality & Attributes

If Park Merchandising were a person, how would you describe their personality?

“Silicon Valley meets Mayberry”

Voice and Tone

What is Park Merchandising’s distinct style of communication? How might we know we were reading something by Park Merchandising, even if the company weren’t named?

• Grounded and practical. While we rely on high-tech tools, we know this all comes down to products on shelves in neighborhood stores across the nation. No fluff or fuzzy abstractions. The only thing that matters is whether we can help suppliers move their products through retailers to the customers who will appreciate them most.
• Quietly confident. We know this business well, based on 20 years of experience at every level of the retail ecosystem. We don’t brag or bluster, but speak with well-earned confidence and authority.
• Caring and personal. Yes, this business is about the logistics of retail commerce, with success measured primarily by profit. But it’s also about creative people with good ideas, finding new ways to provide customers with what they need, want, and love. It’s about small businesses paying their bills and putting aside enough to send their kids to college. It’s about neighborhood stores connecting with their communities in ways no online retailer ever could. Let the humanity of this work shine through.
• Open and inquisitive. The retail landscape has changed radically even in the last five years. Technology and the people behind it have had to evolve quickly. We welcome change and take delight in adaptation. We ask a lot of questions and know we don’t have all the answers. We’re always looking for a better way to help our customers prosper.

Tactical Messaging Components

Tagline

A short, memorable description of the Park Merchandising brand.

Product Management Simplified.
Comprehensive scan based trading, supply chain management, and marketing solutions.

Mission, Vision & Values

Mission

To help retailers, brokers, and suppliers prosper by optimizing operations and maximizing profit while reducing friction, loss, and risk.

Vision

To become the nationally preferred scan-based trading solution and product management provider by helping suppliers, brokers, and retailers sell more of what consumers need, want, and love.

Values

• Integrity. More than a third of scan-based sales opportunities are lost because someone moving things along the supply chain to the retail shelves didn’t do what they said they would. We have a simple solution to increasing sales: we fulfill our promises.
• Humanity. We’re in the business of commerce, driven by logistics and data, but it’s all in the service of people. Creative people with good ideas. People connected to their local communities. People providing people with what they need, want, and love.

• Diligence. We’re conscientious and dedicated to the details, because we know they make a difference. Data is only as good as the people whose minds analyze it and whose hands place the products on display. Successful sales require careful attention and sustained focus.

Boilerplate

A one-paragraph description of Park Merchandising that is suitable for use as the last paragraph of a press release, newsletter, guest blog post, or other content.

Park Merchandising brings timeless shopkeeper sensibilities to data-driven commerce at scale. A leading provider of scan-based trading and product management services, we bridge the widening gap between retailers and suppliers, maximizing profit while reducing friction, loss, and risk. With more than 20 years experience in product management, we are a preferred scan-based trading solution and product management provider in more than 30,000 mass-market and boutique stores nationwide. To learn more, visit parkmerchandising.com or call us at (888) 476-7858.

Elevator Pitch

A casual description of Park Merchandising and the benefits on offer, written in a way that would sound natural when spoken.

We’re a preferred scan-based trading solution and product management provider for more than 30,000 mass-market and boutique stores in America. We bridge the gap between retailers and suppliers to optimize their operations and maximize their profit. Data analysis and technology are only part of how we do this. Digital-only solutions can miss more than a third of scan-based sales opportunities. That’s why we give hands-on attention to every product in every store, helping all parties prosper by moving more of what consumers want.

Key Messages

These messages support the core brand message but are more specific to a particular benefit and more detailed in how they explain that benefit. You wouldn’t provide this level of detail on a website homepage, but you might use all of it on some interior pages of the website and on sales collateral.

These are also messages around which you might craft blog posts, social media, newsletters, and other communications. Think of these as the several pillars that hold up the main structure of the core brand message.

What are 3-5 strategically chosen and compelling messages about Park Merchandising that should form the core of all your marketing and sales activities?

Our Roots are Retail

Park Merchandising started out with a warehouse and a truck, driving around Georgia to sell music and videos through local brick-and-mortar stores. We shook hands with every shopkeeper, obsessed over every display, and kept the shelves full with what we learned local customers wanted.

Today, we manage products in 30,000 mass-market and boutique stores across the country, but we’re still in touch with our retail roots. We remember the stresses of selling our products in others’ stores. We know what it takes to do it right, for the benefit of retailers, suppliers, and customers alike.

As we’ve scaled up, we’ve invested in powerful digital tools, but the heart of our work is still about handshakes and human connections. Connecting creative people with good ideas to shopkeepers who understand their local communities. It’s about people providing people with what they need, want, and love. So that everyone can prosper.

Poor Store Compliance Leaves Too Many Sales Off the Floor

Store compliance is one of today’s toughest challenges for retailers, brokers, and suppliers alike — and in an age of persistent staffing shortages, it’s only getting worse.

Our audits have found that only about 60% of scan-based products are properly displayed and available for discovery and sale. That leaves up to 40% poorly displayed, in the wrong area of the store, or sitting in an unopened box. Complex and costly supply chains that deliver products from halfway around the world often fail in the last 100 feet between storeroom and display shelf.

This poor store compliance leaves too many sales off the retail floor, translating to huge losses in potential profits, for both suppliers and retailers.

Park Merchandising’s proactive analysis, in-store audits, customer service, and hands-on product management recaptures lost opportunities for sales. Our high-touch attention helps retailers and suppliers reduce friction, loss, and risk, while increasing profit. We’re a value-add service that helps you prosper.

Data Alone is Insufficient for Scan-Based Trading Success

Technology powers data-driven commerce at scale. These tools are powerful, but they’re not enough, especially for smaller suppliers and retailers who may not have an in-house data analysis team.

For instance: How do you read the data from your scan-based sales tracking system? What does it tell you about sales patterns and customer demand? When should you act, and how?

Park Merchandising is the only scan-based trading provider that integrates cutting edge digital technology with high-touch, hands-on human attention. In-store, in-person, online, or on the phone, whenever you need us, and even before you know you do: we’ll help you move more of the products that customers need, want, and love.

World-Class Logistics Respond to Local Demand

Scan-based trading managed with world-class logistics reduces risk to sellers and retailers, while opening up new opportunities to serve local markets with unique products.

Park Merchandising gives retailers actionable insights into local customer interests, and a means to diversify their offerings without the risks of held inventory. For suppliers of niche or lesser known products or brands, Park Merchandising offers access to both mass-market and boutique retailers.

Consumers get easier access to what they need, want, and love, while stores and suppliers prosper.

Scan-Based Trading and Product Management Services are the Future of Retail

Modern retail merchandising can be complex and cumbersome, costly and inefficient, risky and even inaccessible to smaller players attempting to enter the marketplace. Scan-based trading and product management services allow retailers and suppliers to outsource the complexity, logistics, and risk.

With Park Merchandising’s comprehensive merchandising services, retailers can focus on connecting with their customers and responding to their needs. And suppliers can get back to creating great products that consumers will love. Let us handle the rest, with efficiency, diligence, and a commitment to helping all parties prosper.

We believe this is the future of retail, and Park Merchandising is leading the way.

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