08. Retail is Detail

Range planning and on shelf availability

The Yellow Dog team partnered with one of the UK’s leading colour cosmetic brands to monitor actual on-shelf availability and in-store merchandising standards.

We developed a low-cost camera-based monitoring system to capture images of stock on shelf.   With remote wi-fi access and store images being captured and shipped out of store every 15 minutes we set about monitoring on-shelf performance and changes to stock level related to either customer or merchandiser activity.

The results were truly astounding.

Over a prolonged trial period of four months, we monitored three full promotional cycles and were able to deliver truly meaningful insights around merchandising compliance and activity and most crucially we were able to measure, over more than 10,000 hours of trading, the impact of on-shelf availability to customer shopping behaviour.

The insights we gave to the brand led us to partnering with them to create a brand-new display format, fully kitted with camera technology to monitor stock.  Our analysis had indicated the potential for significant ROS increase by resolving issues highlighted by the trial.

In addition to our advice on stock targets and merchandise patterns we advised the brand that many unproductive lines could be removed with no impact on sales and highlighted the opportunity to increase stock and facings of key performing lines.  All monitored by the in-built technology.

On roll-out into store we saw benchmark ROS lines increase by 25% against the estate average and were able to double the number of SKU’s achieving the benchmark ROS.

We were able to achieve these results through a fully collaborative approach, working closely with the brand marketing and display teams, POS manufacturer and digital agency.