The Branded Pantry

Day after day, week after week category and shelf plans are made.  Plans are communicated to the store, brokers and reset teams.  Team supervisors lead the charge and changes are made at the shelf.  What does the space management team know about each store’s shelf set?  What decisions does the store manager override?  What decisions are the reset team leaders forced to make during the reset?  What unplanned changes occur to this carefully orchestrated plan in the weeks and months following the reset?  Do any of these changes work their way back up the line?  Or is the whole process more like a game of Telephone?Planning, implementing, maintaining and running the store’s business is expensive.  Money is spent creating and implementing the plans.  Hopefully, money is made when the plans are complete.   You are already spending the money, a lot of it.So, here is the question, “How do you know you are spending money effectively?”  Measuring the implementation and maintenance is hard, but critical in managing this money and the results of the investment.Recent research by ShelfSnap evolved the definition of out-of-stocks to include products that are in the PLAN but that are in fact missing from the shelf.  This includes:1.    Traditional Out of Stocks2.    Assortment Voids3.    Short facingsDistribution voids and short facings, have been found to be every bit as big a problem as traditional out of stocks.  While traditional out of stocks affect 8% of products on the store shelf forfeiting 3-4% of sales, assortment voids are at least another 8% or larger and more detrimental to sales because the voids are day in and day out.  

Facings shorts are even more prolific.Compliance is not maintained in the shelf set and, in fact, typical deterioration at 6 months is about 2 times what ShelfSnap found at 3 months.  This is significant.The good news is that recovering sales lost to assortment voids and facings shorts is much easier than clawing back sales lost due to traditional out of stocks.  Further good news, the effort to do so is largely already paid for!How would you like to gain 4-6% sales increase, two years growth for most brands, without spending incrementally?  The secret and the news here is that assortment voids and short facings, very difficult to identify with traditional methods, are easily found and reported via ShelfSnap.  No Easter egg hunt and no false positives for store resources!  So too, verification of correction is now accurate, undistorted and affordable with a picture interpreted by ShelfSnap.

Communicate and rectify these voids with resources who are already calling on stores on your behalf.Gain the full potential of your plan or “tar the bottom of the volume bucket”.  Today, the inside of the store is chaos, an inhospitable environment for products living on shelf.  8-40% of products are, over time, victims of assortment voids or facings shorts.  The volume that these products would have generated is lost to the brand and the category.  New products and promotions first have to offset the sales lost to these voids and shorts before building category sales.Resources to ensure plan compliance already call on the store.  Arming this force with the right information to maintain compliance is the easiest, most profitable business a product, brand or retailer can generate.