Disposition and shelf maintenance in times of Corona

Dispo­si­tion and shelf main­ten­ance in times of Corona

The CPG indus­try is curr­ently expe­ri­en­cing turbu­lent times just as much as retail. Chal­lenges such as the ban on field sales force visits or the sudden increase in demand for some artic­les, which leads to gaps in the shelf and loss of sales, are caus­ing heada­ches for some brand mana­gers. But that does not have to be the case.

Alter­na­ti­ves to sales force visits needed

If your own field staff or the exter­nal merchan­di­ser you have hired is no longer allo­wed in the stores, this will cause various problems for the CPG indus­try. The other acti­vi­ties such as shelf main­ten­ance, reor­de­ring, distri­bu­tion assu­rance, promo­tion sales, conver­si­ons accor­ding to plano­gram, plano­gram controls and listing of new products are not possi­ble or only possi­ble with great diffi­culty.

Some of this can of course be done by tele­phone, but the lack of a hand on the shelf leads to signi­fi­cant disad­van­ta­ges for the own brands. If the shelf looks untidy, the products are constantly sold out or are placed further back on the shelf, the custo­mer will buy them much less. The fact that a tidy shelf, in which all products have their place and are visi­ble, has been proven by many studies.

Now, howe­ver, even the retailer does not take over these acti­vi­ties 100% during these times, because he also wants to protect his staff from a lot of custo­mer cont­act. This means many untidy shel­ves, sold out or simply not visi­ble products and dissa­tis­fied custo­mers.

Reduce shelf main­ten­ance effort through shelf arran­ge­ment

This problem can be coun­te­red with various tools. On the one hand, there are shelf manage­ment systems, from divi­ders between products to auto­ma­tic push­feeds. Divi­ders ensure that each product has its assi­gned place on the shelf and does not suddenly disap­pear due to a gap and the well-known pulling toge­ther with other products. Further­more, the products do not get mixed up at the back of the shelf and there is late­ral support for products that are not so stable.

Push­feeds ensure that the shelf always looks tidy and fully stocked, even when there are very few products available, because every product — down to the last piece — is auto­ma­ti­cally pushed to the shelf front by spring force. This means that shelf main­ten­ance by the field service is no longer or less frequently neces­sary.

You can find more infor­ma­tion about the advan­ta­ges of shelf arran­ge­ment here.

Digi­tize reor­de­ring process

The process of reor­de­ring and secu­ring the inven­tory can now also be control­led digi­tally. Auto­dis­po­si­tion systems in retail can only ensure deli­very up to the ramp at the super­mar­ket. Ever­y­thing that happens after­wards is curr­ently a black box for the CPG indus­try. But POS TUNING offers with the Neoalto Stock Beacon tech­no­logy a possi­bi­lity to see exactly how much stock of which product is on the shelf. And this even live in every single store world­wide. The paten­ted sensor, which measu­res the quan­tity of products per facing and regis­ters every move­ment, whether remo­ving or refil­ling, deli­vers the data to a Cloud, which can be acces­sed at any time at the company head­quar­ters.

This makes it possi­ble to speci­fi­cally control and thus reduce the number of field service visits, or to talk to retail­ers about frequent shelf gaps and agree on measu­res to avoid them. Through the history in the system, howe­ver, it is also possi­ble to see how a product is deve­lo­ping and can be speci­fi­cally control­led against it in order to avoid over- or under­sto­cking. Even a plano­gram over­view is included in the cloud. What is possi­ble, you can find out here.

Through Corona, a lot has happened in the world regar­ding digi­ta­li­sa­tion. We have finally taken a whole step forward, even in cashl­ess payment, where the Germans were at the bottom of the league. So why not bring auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion to the retail shel­ves right now? It is about time!

Read this press release also on: ixtenso.com