Face to face with retailer: why they don’t take my products to the shelf?

Some #manufacturers complain about the difficulty of entering with their products at #retail outlets: “They do not meet me! They don’t give me a chance for a #sales test in the store! They ask me for money … “.

Knowing the objectives, criteria and selection methods of those who take this decision can make the difference. Let’s try to understand the decision maker’s “state of mind”.

The most limited resource of #distributor / #retailer (including #online #stores) is #SPACE. Who manages the space is measured, remunerated and sometimes rewarded, on the ability to generate the best profit for the allocated space (i.e. the shelf in the broad sense). This is the first expected result for those who make this decision (#CategoryManager, #Buyer, #StoreManager, …), but not the only one.

FROM MARKET TO STORE

The “decision maker”, just in Fast Moving #Consumer Goods (#FMCG) sector, can potentially choose from several hundred thousand products available and every year thousands of new products are launched.

In a #supermarket, there are about 10/15 thousand products.A family purchases some hundred products in its own spending in a year. 30 to 60 are added to the shopping cart for each #shopping trip

We understand that, even if supported by tools, skills and information, the decision maker is not in an easy situation, of course it’s not only a matter of quantity: the products must satisfy their #customers (#shoppers) and having to manage 10/15 different categories, the other scarce resource in addition to SPACE is TIME.

But the listing of a new product simultaneously requires the de-listing of another one… Which one? After having proposed all the advantages of listing our product to decision maker, would we be able to help her/him to decide which #product to de-list? Based on the occasion of purchase or consumption of the shopper, is our product a substitute or a complementary product of an existing one? And if it’s complementary could it be pulled in sales by a product already in the store or in any case generate synergistically additional sales to the #category or to other categories?

Paolo Palomba