Which are the best selling SKUs, and where are yours ranked?  On average, how many SKUs are stocked by the retailer, and how many of those are yours?  What efficiency of range do you have, and how does that compare with your competitors?

How is your sales share affected by varying numbers of SKUs stocked, and what would be an optimum range?  In which groups of stores are you under-performing the market? What supporting data arguments would help to expand your SKU depth?  What is the effect on your brand of differing levels of assortment range for your key competitor?

Diminishing Impact of Assortment Size after 7-8 SKUs Range

Case Study

The higher the number of SKUs present on shelf, the greater the client’s brand share. However, the rate of share increase diminished after 7-8 SKUs. Clearly, 7-8 SKUs was the minimum target to achieve in all retailers.  Many stores were not stocking as many as 7-8 SKUs from the client’s assortment range. Arguments and justifications were needed to convince the retailers that the client deserved more space at the expense of competitive sku’s. Rate of sale rankings, highlighting the prominent positions of the client’s SKUs provided hard evidence, as well as highlighting the non-performing SKUs in the market.  In this way, both retailer and supplier benefited from a rationalisation of the category assortment range.