HRCP Case Study:
A win-win-win shelving and assortment strategy

Situation

The client's category was flat to declining with brand growth waning. Retail shelves were very different from one retailer to another, with little or no category shelving strategy.

Challenge

Henry Rak Consulting Partners was engaged to define a winning shelving and assortment strategy, leveraging a recently completed HRCP MarketMap and consumer growth strategy.

HRCP Advantage

Based on the foundational MarketMap and consumer growth strategy work, we used HRCP’s MixMaster® assortment tool to define assortment strategies and key retailer opportunities. As a result of this analysis, we recommended the following:

• a consumer-growth-strategy-based shelving strategy to align the shelf based on how consumers actually shopped the section: value, mainstream, and premium. This was a significant change from the existing shelving configuration.
• an assortment strategy, using the market structure foundation of the consumer growth strategy and our MixMaster® assortment tool to define the transferable demand based on optimizing assortment at the key segment levels.
• key retailer presentations to educate and explain category composition and strategies, which HRCP developed and attended.

Results

The new shelving and assortment strategy made everyone a winner:

• consumers could shop more easily according to their needs;
• inventory management was improved for the customer;
• and our client achieved impressive sales results.
• Our client’s top 5 retailers implemented the shelf plan and the client realized an additional $2.5MM in incremental profit generated by new items from MixMaster assortment reviews.
• The internal client team won a Shopper Insights award for execution.