Within the framework of the project, “mystery shoppers” among BeMyEye agents will monthly check all points where JUUL Labs products are sold throughout Russia. At the first stage, the project will cover 6,000 stores in million-plus cities. Adult agents who are over 18 but look younger will participate in the audit, to ensure retail partners are age verifying correctly. They will capture the purchase process for JUUL products through audio recordings. Evidence of violation will be a receipt for the sale of an electronic device or a replacement cartridge without a seller’s request for a passport.
“Our target audience is adult smokers, and only they. Along with our mission to help them get rid of smoking combustible cigarettes, we are taking uncompromising measures to protect minors from access to our products. Checking the age of customers to make sure they are over 18 years old is a prerequisite for JUUL Labs working with stores in all countries where our product is sold. In case of a single violation of this requirement by the seller, we carry out explanatory work, and repeated ones are followed by commercial sanctions up to the suspension of deliveries to the point,” said Viktor Ukrainsky, General Manager at JUUL Labs in Russia. “Currently, the sale of electronic nicotine-containing products to minors is prohibited in 36 of the 85 regions of Russia. Our internal researches show that more than half of retailers are unaware of any legal restrictions existing on the e-cigarettes trade. The work of mystery shoppers and regular surveys of sellers allow us to identify these gaps, increase the level of legal literacy and responsibility of retailers” – Viktor Ukrainsky added.
“We are pleased to support JUUL Labs in the implementation of the project to control the age of customers. Research in retail in order to identify violations such as the untimely launch of promotions or inconsistency with the planogram has long become the mainstream, but studying reputation aspects in the relationship between the supplier and the retailer is a new trend with great potential, ” says Kirill Nepomnyashchy, Managing Director at BeMyEye. “BeMyEye has an extensive experience in crowdsourcing research at points of sale for various products around the world. However, a joint project with JUUL Labs on controlling the age of buyers in Russia is still unique in BeMyEye’s international practice, but the demand for studying the reputation and social responsibility aspects between retailers and suppliers will grow” – added Kirill Nepomnyashchy.
In addition to controlling the age of customers, JUUL Labs’ program for the protection of minors in Russia includes the use of images of people over 30 years old in marketing materials, mandatory labeling on the packaging of that JUUL products are prohibited for sale to people under the age of 18, and indication of the amount of nicotine. Recognizing the high social responsibility of the business, JUUL Labs also refused to present itself or promote the product in any social media.
About JUUL Labs: JUUL Labs is a consumer product company dedicated to eliminating cigarettes by offering existing adult smokers a true alternative to combustible cigarettes. The mission of the company is to improve the lives of the world’s one billion smokers by eliminating cigarettes. The company’s research shows that millions of smokers in the US have already switched to JUUL and, through technological innovations, JUUL Labs is working to enable millions more to switch in the coming years. JUUL Labs has been operating in the Russian market since the end of October 2018. More information at http://www.juul.ru
About BeMyEye: BeMyEye is a leading European retail provider of data-as-a-service using advanced crowdsourcing and machine vision technologies, which has developed a revolutionary approach – Lean-Go-To-Market. BeMyEye monitors performance indicators for Perfect Store conditions, including shelf share, planogram compliance, Out-of-Stock, brand recommendations, etc. For this, more than 2 million crowdsourcing agents are used to collect data. The company’s customers include more than 300 major international brands, including Nestle, PepsiCo, Ferrero, Samsung, Heineken and Lavazza.BeMyEye operates in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia and Eastern Europe. The head office of the company is located in London, we also have offices in Milan, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Barcelona. With the support of leading European venture capital funds Nauta Capital, P101 Ventures, 360 Capital Partners and FII Tech Growth.
