Determining the right product assortment is crucial to successful category management and overall retail success. The ability to interpret real-time shelf data and integrate it with market intelligence and sales information helps brands optimize SKU productivity, earn better returns on space, and build trusted partnerships with retailers.
There are two key dimensions to product assortment in the category management process: product breadth and product depth. Product breadth refers to the variety of different lines stocked, while product depth measures the quantity of each line.
For example, a liquor store specializing in fine wine may prioritize broad product breadth to satisfy customers seeking unique items. Meanwhile, another store of similar size might focus on product depth by stocking large volumes of popular beverages. Both stores meet their business objectives but apply different category strategies tailored to their business needs and customer segmentation.
Retail space comes at a premium, making it vital for consumer goods manufacturers and procurement teams to place the most productive SKUs in strategic locations within their key stores. Traditional metrics like unit sales and profit provide some guidance, but only a data analytics approach that integrates real-time shelf insights can fully answer critical questions, such as:
Answering these questions requires shelf intelligence that is accurate, granular, and current. Manual data collection is often prone to errors and delays, but advances in artificial intelligence and automation—especially computer vision technology—have transformed how data is gathered. From fixed cameras to smartphones operated by field teams or even autonomous robots, brands now have ‘eyes in the store’ that feed end-to-end insights directly into category management solutions.
By fusing shelf data with other datasets and visualizing them via intuitive, interactive analytics tools, companies gain unprecedented visibility to optimize facings, listings, and shelf space utilization. This data-driven approach enables brands to remove redundant SKUs and prioritize products that matter most to consumers.
For example, a global alcoholic beverage manufacturer uses a dashboard to monitor compliance and availability of must-stock products by store type and trade channel. Trax’s ‘ranging’ KPI highlights store-level gaps in assortment, using a simple traffic light color scheme to flag potential revenue losses linked to spend management and total cost metrics derived from electronic point-of-sale (ePOS) data.
Beyond quantity, assessing the quality management of shelf space is key. Comparing a product’s share of shelf with its sales contribution helps brands understand whether they have achieved a fair share of shelf space relative to their performance. For one leading FMCG company, analysis revealed their biggest threat wasn’t traditional competitors but retailers’ private label products. By using these insights in supplier relationship management and negotiations, they increased sales by 10.8% through better shelf space allocation.
Category resets can significantly disrupt the shelf ecosystem and affect your business unit’s performance. Brands need timely, granular visibility into shelf reality to evaluate how changes affect space allocation and category growth. When competitors with less effective allocation methods gain market share, strategic sourcing decisions must be informed by benchmarks and forecasts.
Trax provides objective, accurate shelf data along with photographic evidence of in-store conditions, empowering brands to engage key stakeholders in meaningful dialogue to implement in-cycle adjustments.
Our next-generation analytics suite, Trax by Design, delivers market intelligence and shelf insights on demand to manufacturers and retailers alike. With customizable dashboards and comprehensive reports, this solution supports cross-functional collaboration across procurement, supplier management, category management, and supply chain management teams. It helps streamline business operations and align business requirements with strategic sourcing and contract management initiatives, enabling better decision-making across the entire category lifecycle.
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