In-store sampling isn't dead, it's evolving.

There has been a lot of conversation in recent months about the death of in-store sampling, otherwise known as in-store demos. I’m here to tell you though in-store sampling isn’t dead, it’s just evolving to include the digital space. Here is some perspective on some of the recent struggles that it has faced, but also what the future holds.  

It was summer 2013 and I had just finished a year long journey of launching a new sweetener innovation in both US and Canada. What most didn’t realize at the time was I had waited patiently, for several years, for the Canadian food and drug administration to approve a new sweetener to be sold in the market. It was an exciting time and while I was busy building a brand in the US I was also on the road for over 50% a month making pitches to major retailers throughout the country.  Towards the end of that year long journey I had been working diligently on a proposal for one of the largest retailers. This had the potential to be a game changer for my company and would put us in position to be the market leader if successful. It was a May morning that all those years of hard work and preparation finally manifested itself. In that meeting we were prepped with a solid go-to-market plan, which at the time consisted of multiple in-store sampling campaigns, but limited plans outside of the store. We had lined up a partner and would be delivering a top of the notch in-store experience to thousands of customers. The retailer was excited about our proposal, our value, and of course our product. The retailer said “yes”!

It was a few years later that I asked myself how after years of preparation to launch a product could I rely only on in-store sampling to build my brand. Sampling appeared at the time to be a natural fit for getting consumers to try our product, but there were several key things as to why only the in-store sampling strategy limited our launch success: 

1. High labor costs made an in-store sampling effort expensive
2. Little to no insights on consumers with an inability to target the right consumer with the right product.
3. Limited ability to follow back with new consumers
4. Lack of a measurable ROI on full path to purchase sales

The results after we launched were mixed and short term. Sales lifts tailed off and we never built a relationship with the consumer. When launching a new product or driving trial it’s extremely important to connect with the consumer in a 1:1 experience that’s meaningful. Finding a way to bridge the physical in-store experience with an online experience is critical to capturing the ever-changing customer landscape. For our launch in particular, product feedback on some scale would have helped us pivot our product to help drive sustained sales, but we had to wait several additional months to see how consumers reacted to the product once it was not being promoted in-store. This was one of many experiences I’ve reviewed from an in-store sampling perspective and when I started Skosay I believed in being able to connect with my consumers in a more meaningful way. 

Fast forward over 3 years and my team and I have built a product that does just that. Through our Simply Sample product we have taken the simple process of trying a sample in-store and built it for the digital universe and combined it with an in-home experience. Brands have been working with us since 2015 to engage new and existing customers, send samples to their home, gather feedback, and build an ongoing relationship. While sales lift is one of the many great benefits of using our Simply Sample product, brands can actually build on their relationship with their customers for the future, ultimately reducing their customer acquisition costs and increasing the LTV of the customer. To learn more about what we are doing at Skosay and for a demo of our Simply Sample product reach out to me and I’d be happy to discuss what a meaningful sampling experience can do for your brand.