Pratik Sampat’s south London store is 100 years old. He has owned it for six years and, after taking a break, returned to run it a year and half ago. The store has had a refit and majors on cards and stationery, not least because the opening of a 99p Store nearby has had a serious effect on soft drinks and confectionery sales. Pratik believes in creating a point of difference rather than competing head on and has invested in a huge range of cards and gifts as well as offering passport photos and pricemarked products.

Before

Confectionery

• Confectionery displayed on main fixture, under till, midway down shop.
• All new lines stocked at launch, and customer requests used to increase range.
• Pratik is keen to increase sales and improve merchandising.

Soft Drinks

• Soft drinks displayed in open chiller by window at front of store.
• Best sellers include Coke and Diet Coke and bottled formats.
• Range recently reduced to cut number of products and focus on best sellers.

Crisps & Snacks

• Crisps and snacks displayed on one fixture to side of till.
• Stock received from direct-to-store vans.
• Range exclusively from Walkers, with access to point-of-sale material and merchandising advice.

Category Advice

Mars: Confectionery

• Introduce the right range of confectionery to the main confectionery fixture.
• Multiface the best sellers.
• Group products by category and allocate space according to sales.
• Increase gifting range of chocolate to tie into other gifting categories in the store.

GSK: Soft Drinks

• Group like products together and give more facings to top selling products.
• Tighten up vertical blocking.
• Implement a needstates flow to make it easy to find products.
• Reduce facings on slow selling lines.

PepsiCo: Crisps & Snacks

• Extend the range of standard crisp flavours to provide greater choice.
• Add a clipstrip of “better for you” ranges such as Walkers Baked, Sunbites and Lights to appeal to female customers.
• Add new flavours to create added interest among regular customers.
• Introduce Walkers’ two for 70p promotional packs.

Results

Confectionery

• 23% better performance than total market in one month after changes.
• Improved understanding of the need to keep to a core range and improve merchandising.
• Advice made section easier to run, including understanding what to stock and what to delist.
• Merchandising led to increased sales and visibility for several leading products.

Soft Drinks

• 15% growth above the market.
• Increased sales of more profitable formats, such as bottles, due to new merchandising.
• Adherence to a core range of well merchandised products that increased profitability and made section easier to run.
• Better understanding of which products to stock and those to delist.

Crisps & Snacks

• Demonstrated the importance of stocking secondary flavours to offer customers greater choice.
• Better understanding of effective category management.
• Encouraged analysis of sales records to identify a range and display tailored to specific customer base.
• Highlighted the importance of promotions and the need to use these further in future.