The Cost of Dimensional Errors

Jason couldn’t wait to get out of the store, tonight was the big game.  The laundry detergent set was almost done.  Jason grabbed the final jug of detergent and cradled it under his arm like a football as he raced back to the shelf.  Get the last item on the shelf and he’s out of there.  Wait a minute, the jug did not fit.  Jason wiggled the detergent right and left trying to wedge the item into the little remaining space.  “That didn’t work.” he thought to himself.  Just then, his cell phone rang.  It was the guys looking for him.  “Forget the detergent,” Jason thought, “there’s a whole aisle already set up.  No one will miss this one new item.  I’ll just stash the box in the backroom.  No one will find it. I’ll figure out where to put it . . . later.”

Every day planogram schematics carefully planned by category managers meet this type of unintentional sabotage.  Height, depth and width are required dimensions for planning product placement at the shelf.  While all three dimensions are important, no dimension affects consumer presentation more than width.  In retailer planograms reviewed by Gladson Interactive, we found that 76 percent of the products were measured either too narrow or too wide.

The absolute value for package width difference averaged 4.73 feet per planogram.  This means a merchandiser executing the category management planogram in the store is faced with a foot of space at the end of each shelf - where they have to determine which facings to cut out or add, or which planogrammed items to delete - just to offset the errors in the Package Width dimensions used in the planogram.  What happens to your plans during in store execution?

Any dimensional error in a planogram will cost time, labor, customer frustration, and lost sales and profits.

Gladson collects product dimensions carefully and consistently for use in all the current space management softwares.  The Gladson Universal Product Masterfile is the most efficient, effective and accurate method of gathering mission critical product item information.

Contact us at Newsletterinfo@gladson.com
View the Gladson Newsletter Archives