Case Study: Soft drinks fixture optimisation

Business Aims

A leading FMCG brand needed to advise its retail customers on how best to merchandise the fixture in order to achieve maximum category sales and encourage trade-up.  As part of this initiative, new packaging had been developed to help clarify the existing product range.

Marketing Sciences Solution

Consumer research was required to investigate merchandising and branding effects on the soft drinks fixture.  c1,200 Display and Range interviews were conducted nationally across 4 different areas of the UK with a total of 42 Planograms tested. Respondents were asked to approached an empty supermarket aisle from either the left or the right to record (1) product chosen from shelf (2) other products considered & (3) other products noticed.  Planograms were tested with and without fixturisation displayed

Client Impact

The research identified a number of SKUs that could be delisted with minimal impact on the consumer and identified the optimal position on the shelf for the client’s brands.  It was also demonstrated that blocking SKUs by tier rather than brand would be a more effective strategy.