If you mean the individual store manager has no say, you’re right. But if you mean that Schnuck’s as a corporate entity has no say, that’s not true at all. Schnuck’s has over 100 stores. They may use an Assortment Services consultant, but the final say on the assortment (which items they will carry) and placement will absolutely be Schnuck’s.
And if the consultant is making recommendations they are made on the basismaximizing the gross margin that can be realized from each inch of shelf space. High velocity items and brands will be at eye level. Because while the margin on a jar of jelly might vary from $0.80 a jar (for a mass market brand) to $2.00 a jar (for an expensive organic brand) the number of units sold per “facing” can vary from 2000 a month to 20 a month. Velocity drives placement more than anything else.
The idea that CPG companies are buying up the shelf space with “slotting fees” is silly. Slotting fees just cover the cost of actually introducing the product into the assortment and in the supply chain system. And also the cost of failure and space underutilization. New items fail a lot. New items from local or mom-and-pop startups fail even more often. The retailer might charge both Smuckers and Auntie Mame’s Mainer Wilde Berry Preserves the same $150/store slotting fee for 500 stores to slot in a new item. The $75,000 is nothing to Smuckers, but it might be prohibitive to Auntie Mame. The supermarket is not in the business of giving startups a “chance” they are just maximizing yield on shelf space. If Auntie Mame wants to put in four flavors, they’d better have the marketing budget to makes those fly off the shelf as fast as whatever they are going to displace. Not Smuckers mainline products, but maybe some low sugar varieties. Most likely they will be replacing the products of the previous startup that bombed.
Thanks for that clarification. I thought the stores had substantial control over what they carry and where they place it. And it certainly looks like popular items get the best shelf space. There’s obviously a lot of overlay between “popular” and “marketing budget”, but gee, it really looks like “stuff people buy frequently” is favored.
I just stock the shelves and I don’t know who creates the schematics, but there are two different kinds of shelving in my store. There are “vendor” shelves, where the supplier (Pepsi/Coke/Bud/Coors/Little Debbie/Franz/Mission/Reser’s/Schwan’s etc.) sends out representatives to the store daily to order and restock the displays, which I would estimate probably makes up about 25% of our total stock, and there’s the rest, which the store employees are responsible for ordering and stocking.
I assume that we at the company level have more control over the arrangement of the latter than of the former.
Here’s my experience from a short stint as a Merchandizer(official job title) for Franz. There is an actual Franz bakery here where I am and locally Franz supplies both Winco and Walmart with not only all the Franz brands of bread but the house brands for those two stores. At Winco, the store employees stock and face the house brand bread, at Walmart the Franz sales rep or the merchandizer(not the same person) would stock and face both the Franz labels and the house label. Walmart employees wouldn’t even pick up a loaf (or any other item far as I could tell) that had been moved by a customer to return it to the bread shelf. Probably a contractual thing. Individual stores can have some leeway. I had one Winco store that the manager had us coming by twice a day to face the shelves, the rest of the Winco stores on my route only wanted to pay for the single morning visit.
When we got a contract for a new store that another customer was opening, it was my manager’s job to design the bread shelf, where things went on the shelf and how many and the like, for our section of the bread shelf.
^^ @Beckdawrek, YESSSSSSS!!!
Clearance Bins are Da Bomb
No, I remember wondering that myself— it would make sense, like the little attached rack of salsas you often see in front of the tortilla chips in the snack section. But I saw no relation to what was in the refrigerated section. It was, seemingly, totally random.
The overhead signs are helpful to a degree. My grocery app will tell me where things should be located down to which shelf. Which floored me when I checked the shelf and saw little numbers correspondig to product placement. Never noticed those before.
But don’t try looking for cups of fruit near the canned fruit, separate aisles.
I’m having this problem with cooked bacon. I have no idea where to find it. Last time was a freestanding cardboard display near the snack
This is what happens to me with raisins. Are they in the snack aisle? The fresh produce area? Baking area? One time they were between the fruit juice and the cereal
I find beans in the “Spanish foods” section, the “Italian foods” section, and near the canned veggies. Depending on which brand or type of bean i want, i might have to check all three. And the dried beans are in two places.
I bet you thought that I forgot all about you. But I didn’t.
I just went to my usual mid-range grocery store (Gelson’s) which didn’t have apple butter but did have Everything Butter along with the jams, jellies, honey, nutella and various nut butters.
Their Everything Butter was peanut, almond, hemp, pepita, chia, sesame, sunflower and flaxseed. No added sugar. The brand name is Fix & Fogg. I didn’t buy it.
In what form? Except for Campbells Bean with Bacon which I think was discontinued I don’t recall ever seeing a canned version. You buy white beans and make it, maybe with canned beans. White beans with ham is pretty common too. Pre-made in a can? Might as well be Campbells.
Costco is recalling 80,000 pounds of butter because they didn’t put a warning that butter contains milk on the label. Hope they checked the Peanut and Apple Butter labels.
