How To Use WeStock

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Gain Control of your Retail Performance

Step 1: Collect

1) Request Forms

• Their email address
• Their Zip code
• Preferred retail store location
• Products they want to see in their preferred store

• On your website. Add your link to high traffic pages in highly visible areas, like on your home page and in the header and footer menus so it carries across each page of your site. It should also be on your store locator page above the map, as a button or hyperlinked text so a customer knows if there are no locations near them, they can request your products be carried at their favorite store. If you have a FAQ section, you can also link the form in questions related to finding your products in-store.

• In your email newsletter. Sharing your request form link with your email list is an excellent way to get data on the board quickly, since these customers have interacted with your brand and have maybe even purchased your products before. Email audiences tend to have one of the highest engagement rates when submitting requests, so if you are just getting started with WeStock or when you need a boost in requests ahead of category review season, your email audience is a reliable source of data. Send your request form link to your subscribers at least each quarter, and when you launch a new product (after adding the product to your request form) so your customer can request the new item.

• In post-purchase emails. After you make an online sale, send the customer your request form link so they can tell you where they would shop for the product in-person.

• In your social media bio link manager. You want to capture data from every audience your brand builds. Adding your request form link to your Instagram and TikTok bios makes it easy for your social team to simply ask your followers to “tap the link in our bio” to share their favorite store. It is key to post about your request form regularly to encourage your audience to make requests, especially when you launch a new product or you have an influx of new followers. You want everyone to know they have the power to get the products they want in their local store. Sending a reminder post every six weeks or so will give you a bump in requests.

• Support your organic social engagement with paid media. Use social ads to strategically capture requests from consumers that shop at the retailer you want to get your products into for a lower CAC than having them buy online. Set a target retailer, region, demographics, and interests to define your audience, and run the campaign with your request form link as the call-to-action. Voila, you have meaningful demand data to show the buyer, plus new audience members that can be notified when your products hit a shelf near them.

• When engaging with customers on social or through your help desk. If you get comments on your posts, DMs, or emails saying “Please come to [insert city here]!”, remember you can capture all of these interactions in your WeStock dashboard by sending the customer your request form link in response. That way none of these requests gets lost in the shuffle.

2) Customer Surveys

Customer Surveys can be accessed by your customers two ways:

• On your product request form. Set a “Default” customer survey to make a survey accessible from your product request form. WeStock automatically sets this default survey to a simple “questions and comments” form, which gives customers the opportunity to share their thoughts. These are great for pull quotes to use in marketing or in your sales pitches. You can set your “Default” form to a different survey to give your customer access directly from your request form.

• With a direct link. Customer surveys can also be shared as a link, just like your request form. Use customer surveys any time you want to get to know your customer even better to discover new opportunities for marketing and product development. For example, you can send it in your post-purchase email flow a few days after your customer has a chance to try the product so they can tell you what they liked about the product, or any other information you’d like to ask them. This is your opportunity to ask a real customer about who they are and what they prefer when it comes to their favorite products.

3) QR Codes

• At demo events. Whenever you have live brand activations or in-person sampling events, have a sign with your QR code prompting visitors to scan and request where they want to see your brand. You can also display a separate QR for a customer survey asking them for feedback on the samples they tried.

• In online order shipments. Similarly, print your QR code on packing slips or marketing inclusions in your direct-to-consumer shipments asking where the customer would like to pick up your product in a store near them.

• On your packaging. Create a QR code for a customer survey to capture feedback so the person who has your product can submit their thoughts or more information about themselves.

• As an Instant Redeemable Coupon (IRC). Place a QR code on an IRC on your product that a customer can scan to enroll in a Keyword (more on that soon) to get access to exclusive promotions like purchase reimbursements.

4) Landing Pages

• Capture preferred store and product information. Create a campaign to text your product request form to your customers.

• Send store level campaigns to drive velocity. Need to move product off shelves to boost your velocity at key retail accounts? Text customers that shop at these stores with a promotional offer to reimburse their purchase. They go into the store, purchase the product, send a photo of their receipt, and WeStock will send them a reimbursement via Paypal or Venmo.

• Capture post-purchase feedback. Once it’s been confirmed that a customer has purchased your product, we’ll send them a survey with custom questions created by you to get their feedback on their experience. All of the responses will be housed right in your WeStock dashboard so you and your team can stay organized and refer back to what customers think about their experience.

5) WeStock’s consumer app

Step 2: Visualize

• Total Requests. You’ll see the number of product requests over the course of the date range you’ve selected. When presenting your data to retailers, you can view your entire lifetime of data on WeStock to show your brand in the best light possible and give a complete picture of your overall demand.

• Your Top SKUs. Identify which products are most in-demand by your customers so you can tell buyers what they should stock on their shelves when they bring your brand in.

• Your Top Retailers. Your top three most requested retail banners will appear on your overview page, so you know exactly which stores you should be focusing on. Seeing stores you’re already stocked in? Great! Sending a campaign to shoppers at these stores can help you move more product off their shelves.

• Trending Tags. Understand which product attributes are most important to customers right now. All products listed on WeStock can be tagged with their features, and products with these features are currently getting the most requests. If your products have any of these characteristics, make sure they are tagged accordingly so you can get discovered by customers making requests on WeStock’s consumer app.

• Top Sources. Keep track of where your product requests are coming from with your Top Sources report. It’s a great place to check in to make sure your links are shared on multiple platforms, and for tracking your ROI for paid social ads or giveaway engagement.

• Heat Map. See where your customers are located across the US so you can build a sales strategy around the states and regions where your brand is in high demand. You might be surprised to find a pocket of demand in an unexpected area.

• Category Ranking.  See how your customer demand compares to other brands in your category on WeStock with your category ranking. Not #1 yet? Make sure you’re sharing your product request form with all of your audiences to bump up your ranking.

• Consumer Sentiment. We evaluate responses to feedback forms to identify whether the customer is leaving a positive, neutral, or negative comment, giving you a sense of your audience’s experience with your products.  

• Upload your customer list.  Do you have location information for your ecommerce customers? Upload your customer information to WeStock, and we’ll build you a map so you can see where your greatest concentration of shoppers is located. If you don’t have location information, you can segment the emails without location information so you can easily create a list to send your product request form to so you can capture location data. Once you have location information, they can be added to your map.

• Upload your store list. Visualize where your current stockists are in relation to your audience. From here, you’ll be able to identify the stores that serve the most customers, allowing you to create high-impact store level activations to drive sales.

Step 3: Act

• Open new accounts with custom buyer reports. Getting the buyer on board is easy, since you can show them how many customers their stores will serve and the exact product mix that those customers are looking for. WeStock will create these slides for your pitch deck using your brand’s own template, or a 1-pager to share with buyers to keep the conversation open.

• Launch successfully in new stores with notifications. Once you get stocked in these stores, WeStock will notify shoppers when you’re on a shelf nearby. You can even send them an exclusive promotion for showing their love and helping you get you into the store.

• Notify shoppers located near current stockists. Some of your audience members may make a request for a store you’re already stocked in, or an online shopper could already purchase your products locally. Send notifications to these customers through WeStock so they know that you’re already stocked in the store they requested, or in an alternative stockist near their requested retailer.

• Tell customers when you’re on sale in a store near them. Ensure that your marketing spend at a retail chain is well spent by driving customers into stores when you’re on promotion. Share your promotional calendar with WeStock, and we’ll send notifications out to your customers that can find your products on sale nearby so you hit your goal velocity, keeping your category buyer satisfied. It’s also a great way to tell your customers when seasonal items and LTO flavors hit a store near them.

• Boost velocity with SMS promotions. Need to move products off shelves at a particular retailer or store location? Send exclusive SMS promotions to activate customers where you need it most through WeStock. We create the SMS keyword, set up the promotional campaign, and act as the clearing house, making it easier than ever for you to own the entire customer journey. Just let us know the retailer, region, and promotion and we can get SMS promotions set up the same day.

• Segment your audience based on location, preferred retailer, and proximity to current stockists. Create targeted lists so you can send relevant messaging to customers driving them to make requests, send feedback, or make in-store purchases based on your brand’s needs.

• Create Klaviyo segments of customers that come in through your WeStock forms. Upload the segments back to Klaviyo so you can target them with campaigns that come straight from your brand.

• Respond directly to customers that send in survey responses and feedback. Did a customer ask a question as part of their feedback to you, or do you want to reach out to thank them or ask for more information? Now you can reply to a customer’s response right from your WeStock dashboard. Once a comment has been reviewed, you can mark it as “Complete” so your team knows it has been handled.

• Get discovered by retailers. WeStock partners with national distributors and retailers so brands can get attention from buyers based on their consumer demand. It’s a simple process: the more requests you have, the more you’ll stand out to your category buyer in the reports we share with the retailer.