PUBLISHERS LETTER

During this year’ s Activate Advisory Board Meeting in Minneapolis, attendees pledged to meet virtually over the summer to continue the conversation and build a workgroup dedicated to solving challenges in the three-tier system. The workgroup met for the first time via Zoom in late July, tackling the topic of category management.

Participants included retailers, distributors, association executives and subject matter experts, working together to advance understanding of category management throughout the industry, and find data-sharing solutions to enable that goal.

Category Management Association VP of Sales and Strategic Partnerships James Jackson shared shopper insights his organization gathered from retail and solution provider members.“ Category management starts with alignment, not execution,” he said.“ All stakeholders need to be engaged, so three tiers work as one.”

Regarding retailers’ mindset, he added,” category management works well when you have a merchant mentality. Shoppers are going on a mission and trying to accomplish a goal when they visit a store. Solve for the mission, and provide more than just a product.”

When asked about the most pressing need right now that category management can solve, one independent retailer participant shared that“ trends are moving too quickly and we’ re constantly chasing them. This could help us finally catch up.”

CIBA Solutions founder Brad Bock offered a case study about one retailer client who implemented category management principles in their store, speaking about the need to create occasions and experiences, especially for younger consumers.

Asked about where to start, he offered,“ take the best of all the different ideas coming at you from suppliers and distributors, keeping in mind they’ re biased toward their proprietary systems and products.”

One national distributor on the call offers customers a toolkit built around the concept of category management. Her team provides a resource for account reps working with store managers and owners, to help build a plan based on demographics, sales trends, point-of-sale information and comparative data sources.

The Beverage Information Group is working with the Category Management Association to offer a package of resources for beverage industry associations to share with members, reducing the access cost for individual retailers and providing new opportunities for independents to compete against chain stores. The components of that package will be determined based on further discussion with retailers about their needs through surveys and future workgroup meetings.

The next Activate virtual meeting will be held in early October. If you’ d like to join the conversation, email mefor details.

Jeremy Nedelka SVP, Managing Director, Beverage Information Group jnedelka @ epgacceleration. com