Category Strategy and Structure

We are often asked to make recommendations on Category Strategy and in many of those cases one of the areas that has usually been overlooked is the structure of the category or sub category at the shelf or on-line and how it can maximise potential sales.

How many times have you stood in front of a FMCG fixture and couldn’t find the brand or the sub category or product you wanted?
It amazes us how badly this can be executed In-store and our research backs up this view

Some interesting data points;

The unfortunate fact is that many categories are Not designed to Shop but instead rely heavily on brand dominance or decision trees and or retail preference as to how they are presented.

This coupled with the fact that Over 50% of shoppers time is spent browsing for products rather than buying or trading up, means that brands are becoming commoditised and habitual purchasing is more and more prevalent as shoppers try to make sense of brand proliferation and visual confusion.

We have proven with our clients, that Putting the shopper at the core of your Category Structure, be it a regular or lapsed one, can make a significant difference to conversion and basket spend as well as reducing walk away rates.

We do this by deeply understanding how your category performs through a series of initial research interventions and using state of the art methodologies, that produce a number of metrics that we can measure both pre and post of the project.

Using all this information we go on to redesign the category using our experts in semiotics, colour palettes and store design. Liaising with our clients and their retailers, to obtain both the right solution for them and their shoppers and installing in a number of test stores before potentially rolling out across their estate.

Of course, none of this would be useful without evaluating the new fixture and producing investment scenarios post completion so that you and your retail partner can make informed decisions as to further expenditure and return.

We run tests and execute new designs and category structures across a multitude of channels and in different markets across the globe, and in almost every case we have seen Positive Results. This has gone on to change how the retailer promotes its products and increased the strategic relationship with the supplier

Results

• Positive Increase in category performance
• Sub-Category increase in penetration and performance
• Dwell time reduced
• Browse time increased
• Speed to first interaction increased
• Larger basket spend
• Increase in Shopper Satisfaction
• Premium product increase
• More Shoppers interacting with the fixture