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Sponsored Product Sampling with SwishBx

An estimated $1 billion dollars are spent on traditional sampling methods by CPG brands every year with the most common sampling campaigns being in-store sampling and direct-to-consumer (D2C) campaigns. Despite playing an important role for CPG activation of product sampling, grocery retailers are often left out of the value chain.

Meanwhile, retailers planning to launch their own sampling campaigns face different challenges including lengthy planning, packing and distribution, and operational issues. For regional grocers that are already struggling with labor constraints and costs, it’s a major challenge to get a sampling campaign off the ground. And this isn’t even to mention having the technology to accumulate data and insights to measure sampling campaign success.

Our latest feature, powered by an integration with SwishBx, provides a turnkey solution to activate product sampling for your eCommerce experience. With direct integration into your eCommerce experience, samples get automatically added to customer orders and you get a share of the revenue from CPG brands. No extra costs and logistics required.

Let’s jump into how it works:

First, a CPG brand commits marketing dollars to activate a personalized sampling program with a retailer. Then, based on the product sample that is chosen, a “trigger” is selected to add the product sample to the basket. The trigger can be a specific UPC, category, order total, etc.

Let’s use a breakfast staple – milk and cereal as an example. A CPG is interested in promoting their brand new “Back in Charge” cereal. The CPG decides on a carton of milk as a trigger product/UPC for a full-size sample of their cereal.

Once the trigger (i.e. carton of milk) is added to a customer’s basket, a full-size product sample (i.e. cereal) is then added to the customer’s order. From there, the product sample is added to the store associate’s pick app as a “complimentary item” and is picked (see Figure 1). Since the product sample comes right out of the store inventory, there’s no need to carry a sample-specific inventory to support this feature.

Mercatus Picker app with complimentary item
Figure1 : Once a trigger product is purchases, a full-size product sample is added to the order and pick app as a “complimentary item.

Finally, retailers get reimbursed for the cost of samples distributed and a share of the product sampling dollars spent. CPGs and retailers can also access a detailed view of campaign performance (Figure 2) to see campaign spend, sales, and key ROI metrics.

swishbx Performance Dashboard
Figure 2: Performance dashboards that track attributed sales, total spend, lifetime value, etc. are available for CPGs and retailers.

Integrated Sponsored Product Sampling is an innovative way for retailers to tap into the vast revenue potential offered by product sampling. Not to mention an opportunity to surprise and delight your customers. It’s a win-win for everyone!

This feature is currently available for pickup orders only. To learn more about how this might work for your organization, contact [email protected] for an exploratory call.