Taking Control of the Aisles

One of the biggest challenges for supermarket operators in recent years has been creating excitement in the center aisles. Grocery's core middle section has languished during the past couple of decades, while the perimeter has taken over the spotlight. It is true that a can of peas is only a can of peas. However, operators are struggling to sell those peas, and the laundry detergent, paper towels, dog food and many of the other categories that occupy the center of the store.Traditionally, retailers have competed with each other and the other channels of distribution in grocery in terms of selection and price. Selection often depends on the size of the store and the operator's knowledge of the unique category and brand preferences of the shoppers. Price is often a function of a joint promotion with manufacturers. Therein lies the problem. Manufacturers have tried to generate excitement for their products within the grocery aisles by employing promotional signage, which quickly cluttered the store.A circus of signs, placards and banners has been evident in many supermarkets, many shifting position and message from one Saturday to the next. This is the way manufacturers traditionally have gotten their message out. Does this method work? Does it cause excitement in the center aisles? The answers to these questions are mixed. Certainly point-of-purchase signage and in-store promotions move more units of the product being touted. According to data from Point-of-Purchase Advertising International (POPAI), based in Washington, D.C., in-store promotional signage accelerates product movement 8% to 13% on average. Clearly, price promotions do excite shoppers to a certain degree, and the subsequent increased unit volume on promoted products is always thrilling to operators. However, the supermarket has established itself as its own brand, complete with its own perceived qualities and image. The grocery store is no longer a blank slate for manufacturers to promote their products in a way that unites its regional or national advertising messages. Instead, retailers are asking suppliers to conform their messages to the store's look and feel. The driving force behind this movement is oddly enough the perimeter departments. Retailers have been using the perishables sections and gourmet aisles to trend stores upscale in some cases, and they are not about to allow the center of the store to bring down the image that they have so carefully, and expensively, crafted."As a trend, retailers are getting more creative, knowledgeable and sophisticated in the macro, as well as micro merchandising, including planning and execution of these sections," says Paul Bloom, vice president of marketing for Cleveland-based FFR Inc./Fasteners For Retail. "They [retailers] are understanding more of the tasks that they used to rely on the expertise of outside companies for and are doing them in-house. Retailers are pushing for a more solid overall retail environment look and feel that has their corporate identity throughout."Two components are necessary for retailers to take charge of what is being put up in their stores. First, operators must work with manufacturers to tailor their promotional materials to meet their stores' size, color, display and design criteria. "Many of the retailers that we work with will no longer simply allow us to put up the standard point-of-purchase materials that our vendors create," says the vice president of sales for a large Northeastern food broker. "Our promotional materials must now go through the retailer's own corporate review before they can be used. We try to get our vendors to develop a range of different materials to offer retailers, hoping that something will work. After a few go-arounds with the retail merchandising people, you get to know what kinds of things each chain will accept, and we try to pass that along to the suppliers."Second, retailers are not only deciding what to hang in their stores, but they are also creating many of the necessary display methods for these materials. Just as the wrong styles or colors on signage can create a mismatched look in the aisles, so too can the wrong type of display equipment. Whether it is a sign holder, clip strip, shelf channel or a run of shelving, store management is increasingly looking to the equipment they use as a means of setting off particular categories or even products within a given category. According to Bloom, retailers in many cases are taking available display technologies and adapting them to better fit the store decor."Years ago, we used to think that we knew how our customers were going to be using our products," says Bloom. "We're constantly seeing our products being looked at in different ways." So, retailers have to view their display methods differently, "whether it's building them into an overall display, or into a fixture that they've created."This shift has caused developers of merchandising and display equipment and materials to rethink a lot of their products. Today's merchandising equipment needs to be able to adapt to multiple tasks and assignments. Since one size no longer fits all, many merchandising units must also be able to adapt to different size shelves or different hanging configurations. The equipment manufacturers' job has become more challenging, especially as they try to add more of these multitask units to their regular product lines to help users avoid having to pay for custom designed pieces.With this versatility in mind, FFR has developed the Power Zone shelf management system. The self-facing system allows retailers to set off a segment of their shelf run to stand out from the rest. The display, which comes in various colors, is spring-loaded so product is continually pushed to the front of the unit. With labor being one of the biggest issues in merchandising the center store, the Power Zone comes completely assembled, with little or no labor required for installation. The unit is also adaptable to a number of different shelf depths. This type of flexibility is becoming more important to grocery merchandising executives as supermarket consolidation forces retailers to merchandise newly acquired stores with a variety of different shelving units. Having one merchandising unit that can accommodate the various shelving sizes is a tremendous help.Retailers are trying to create focal points, as well. Operators and brand marketers have been doing this for years through the use of hanging signs or special displays. While these are still very popular, merchandisers are looking to other types of displays that cause the shopper's eye to break their usual visual line when they look down the aisle. "Sometimes it's as simple as changing the color of the shelves to change a focal area, maybe using a wire shelf instead of a flat steel shelf," says Kent Williams, store planning services manager for Omaha, Neb.-based Lozier. "What we're seeing in a lot of cases is the integration of graphics into the shelves. There's a lot of different ways in which to do that. For instance, we've got some shelf add-ons that will hold graphics."They [retailers] might even stair step the height of a particular section to create different areas within the aisle. Or, instead of using a peg-board back on the gondolas, they might switch to a slot wall. Retailers can also put a wood-grained laminate on the shelf to make it look more upscale. Most of these methods are fairly easy to accomplish; it's not like you are reinventing the wheel or putting in a whole new system."Lozier manufacturers its own line of sign holders and other related display equipment that integrates with its shelving products. According to Williams, the key qualities that retailers are looking for in this equipment are ease of use and flexibility. Lozier's signs, for instance, can be slid in and out without unscrewing any of the parts. The sign holders can also be easily moved from place to place along the gondola. In terms of flexibility, retailers are looking for sign holders that can be used with various types of signage. Holders that can be used to hold a sign in the flat position (straight out) and that can also be used to display signage in the flush position (straight down) are critical.Other areas on the gondola where operators are starting to add more graphics and color are the channels that run along the shelf facing. Numerous products are being developed for these front rails. Instead of just putting price stickers out front, retailers are using the channels to add color or unique advertising and informational messages. This continues the concept of changing the shopper's field of vision and creating focal points on the shelf. However, instead of breaking up a whole aisle run, the graphic front rail breaks up part of a category or section for the shopper that is staring directly at it. Gondola manufacturers have also created decorative front rails, such as those with rounded curves, to change the look of a part of the shelf or to even change the look of a whole shelving unit. The product lends an upscale look without having to go through the expense and headache of replacing existing shelving.

Taking Control of the Aisles

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