W. Frank Dell II, CMC

Retail Customer Experience: Retailers, take back your shelves

March 5, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Over the past generation, stores lost their individuality, becoming homogenous and undifferentiated. A major factor in this lack of personality came when stores began selling space for advertising. To what degree is co-op advertising responsible for any sameness seen across supermarkets?      [more...]

The real driver was not co-op advertising money but the Category Manager/Buyer incentive system. How many Buyers sold the Category Leader slot and then wondered why their store looked the same as competition?

I once proposed to a chain president that they should set up groups of stores to test the flood of new products. Since few buyers are real merchants, this way by running a test, they could have the consumer decide. I was told this was a typical MBA solution. Their solution was to take in the new product paying the greatest slotting allowance and then discontinue ASAP so they could repeat the process with another vendor's item.

The standard is 50% of co-op money makes it to the bottom line. When buyers have a dollar amount needed to get a bonus, the results are straight forward. You take in the item that gets you your bonus. This was a big CPG company game and advantage. But as always, selling shelf space is not consumer focused.