While COVID-19 disrupted the retail industry, it also unlocked new ways for consumer product companies and retailers to engage and support shoppers.
A global manufacturer of retail fixtures—carts, checkout stations, shelving, furniture—sought new ways to help grocers and other retailers keep their stores clean and safe for shoppers. The pandemic meant more frequent cleaning and more labor needed to clean, combined with a huge spike in online orders.
Adjusting Retail Sanitation Solutions to Respond to COVID
Our client needed to adjust quickly and reassure their customers that they had solutions to reduce virus transmission and introduce strategies to minimize labor and effort while ensuring compliance with cleaning guidelines. Through internal workshops, we educated them about sanitation and disinfection methods, helped evaluate potential product development partners, and planned and ran alignment and ideation workshops with their central innovation team. When we expanded the workshops across eight additional business units, the organization increased reach and efficiency by facilitating cross-organization collaboration.
We ensured our client understood available technology options, ignored the pseudo-science, and defined a process to help them decide which solutions to offer customers. Using our insights, our client was able to work with new partners we introduced them to and launch highly effective disinfection solutions much faster than on their own.
