http://brandedpantry.com Blogging on the CPG industry Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:33:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A very interesting newsletter, http://www.shelfsnap.com/newsletters/Volume15.htm examining the differences between how shelves look in the store, vs. the plan for those shelves."Traditional analysis focused on out of stocks, typically misses compliance to plan.  In fact, often we observe shelf sections with no out of stocks, and yet not one item on the shelf is in ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/03/07/chaos-on-the-shelf/ Much has been written (perhaps most succinctly by CPGmatters.com http://www.cpgmatters.com/ProductTrends0310.html#anchor_140) about CPG’s move back into E-tailing.    A number of the articles focus on P&G’s initial “build their own” strategy.  Other articles focus on new platforms such as Alice.com which has attracted participation from 29 manufacturers.  Almost all of the articles give ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/03/07/cpg-e-tail-redeux-or%e2%80%a6something-else/ Add another retailer to the roughly 200,000 stores which have closed down since the beginning of the “downturn”. In January, at the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, Tres Lund CEO of Byerly’s reported to a somber group that 200,000 stores had closed out of a market consisting of about 1.1 million “doors.”  While sobering in its ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/02/28/200000-1/ You are the CEO.  Ten years ago a competitor emerged creating a new distribution channel.  You eventually followed that competitor into the channel, but not until they had claimed a very substantial chunk of business...a chunk that continues to nibble at your market share. Now that competitor has opened yet one ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/02/07/managing-change-that-has-already-happened/ The trade papers are riddled with announcements from manufacturers about their new product intentions.  Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Pepsico, Nestle, Kraft and many others have announced their intentions to introduce products into a myriad of categories over the next three months.  New product activity which largely took a hiatus in ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/01/15/its-january-2010-do-you-know-where-your-new-products-are/ At this time of any year we would be starting to come out of the malaise that affects most of us from our end of year holidays and we would be starting to execute the plans we put into place during the planning-budgeting cycle from last year.  Those plans were ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/01/10/out-with-the-oldor-else/ I have spent a good bit of space over the last two years writing about what I believe to be a fact, and that is that there are no silver bullet applications available to solve the front-to-back inefficiencies in the CPG and Retail compliance arena.   It doesn’t matter if we ... http://brandedpantry.com/2010/01/04/shelfsnap-filling-a-void-in-shelf-level-collaboration/ The CPG Industry appears, once again, to be focused on in store execution and compliance.  Mantras like the In-Store Implementation Network's Plan-Do-Measure can be heard by numerous groups.  Some experts opine that measuring and managing at the store level is the best way increase sales dollars.  Others seem to think ... http://brandedpantry.com/2009/12/07/measure-manage-one-store-at-a-time-ted-gladson-on-shelfsnap/ 2009 will be a hallmark year for the paucity of new items introduced by manufacturers.  However, Fabric Care is a category with numerous new products and many of these deliver substantial innovation to consumers.In late April the first of these laundry brands hit the market, clamoring for space on key ... http://brandedpantry.com/2009/12/07/new-items-significantly-compromised-by-in-store-compliance/ The lots were full today.  Not just Best Buy,  Walmart* , Costco and the like but Office Depot!  Now I cannot convert that into $$ or trends, but it looked pretty positive.  Based on four conversations in the Costco gas line, they were bargain seekers.  But of course,  ALL of the ads focus on the deals so ... http://brandedpantry.com/2009/11/28/thanks-and-black-friday/