We work with businesses of all sizes at Gigwalk. While all our customers have great stories, there are a few that stand out, especially when it comes to small and medium businesses. For the small consumer goods companies we work with, it’s often about the battle for shelf space in stores.

It’s hard enough for them to get their product into stores when they don’t have a famous brand name behind them. Once they’re in, the product has to sell enough to keep the shelf space they have (and ideally, get more). The problem is, there’s a lot that can go wrong at retail that’s out of their hands. Maybe their product is in the wrong place, or store associates aren’t re-stocking the shelves. In fact, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) estimates that 25% of the time a  product is out of stock on the shelf or display, the item is actually in the store somewhere.

Oasis Consumer Healthcare is a company owned by doctors, dentists and scientists. One of their products is Halo, an oral antiseptic that helps protect against airborne illness. They learned that sales in 10% of its stores were down across a major retail chain in some parts of the country, but they were strong everywhere else. With only 5 weeks left in a 12-week test-run, they had to do something fast, or risk losing the shelf space they fought so hard to get. So they decided to use Gigwalk to find out what was going on.

Here’s our favorite part of this story: For the price of a smartphone, they received 300 photos and 450 data points that helped them find out exactly where there were problems at retail, fix them, and ensure their product launch was a success. We love it because their story isn’t just about a mobile app. It’s about what you can do when there are hundreds of thousands of people available on-demand to show you exactly what your product looks like in stores at a moment’s notice.

Want to learn more about the Oasis Consumer Healthcare story? Download the case study.