The evolution of the retail landscape in recent times has been rapid. Without shelf insights, retailers and brands are engaging in execution activities, in the dark. 

Body wash manufacturer homes in on ‘problem’ stores

In the latest range review by a major retailer for products in the body wash category, a leading brand noticed that their overall share of shelf had gone from 50% to 35% across stores. The Sales management team decided to evaluate their retail shelf execution, to better understand how this impacted their sales.

Analysis leveraging Trax by Design revealed that the manufacturer’s share of shelf was being encroached upon by a key competitor as well as by the retailer’s own Private Label products. The Private Label products had also gained eye-level facings that were previously occupied by their brand. Regional managers were able to identify these gaps in execution, as well as identify which stores they had lost the most space in, and take action to correct these gaps in compliance.

Multinational alcoholic beverages company performs in-cycle corrective actions

In another example, a liquor manufacturer equipped its sales management with a bird’s eye view of product availability across key territories. A simple dashboard highlights compliance status in different stores based on minimum product availability. Stores below a certain threshold were flagged, and managers are quickly able to drill down to locate the sales reps assigned to the store as well as what products were missing.

Lack of shelf intelligence can be costly

Brands have long used a mish-mash of tools and data sources to monitor merchandizing compliance. Even in mature, large companies, a combination of sample based field data, EPOS data and shopper data is used to understand shelf reality. The lack of a dedicated intelligence stream hampers  managers’ ability to truly analyze execution.

Field sales managers are unable to identify opportunities for the field force to drive performance that edges out the competition. Moreover, the lack of visibility results in mangers and other stakeholders not having a clear view into the impact on sales due to noncompliance in stores.

The power of image recognition combined with BI

Image recognition is the missing piece in your data strategy. The technology captures richer execution data across all your stores and locations so that you can better understand the performance of core SKUs as well as your competitor activity. CPGs gaining shelf data with IR and analysing it using cutting-edge visual analytics have significantly improved their ability to identify out-of-stock issues and areas of noncompliance.

With the right technology and analytics tools, for the first time, clients have a store by store record of their execution in stores.

Trax by Design is a suite of analytics tools designed to elevate your understanding of shelf execution performance and unveil massive growth opportunities in store.

Our cutting edge analytics suite:

  • Provides on-demand insights and accessible data to drive your business wherever and whenever you need it.
  • Facilitates stakeholder demands through customized or modular pillars, saving you time and hassle
  • Empowers you to generate insights with confidence to positively impact your key account negotiations and range reviews.
  • Helps you acquire real-time knowledge of the efficiency of your instore plans before you execute against them.
  • Turns cumbersome analytics process into an easy, intuitive experience for the infrequent user and provides unparalleled analytical visibility for primary users.

Get in touch to find out how Trax by Design could work for you.