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By Posted on Posted in Consumer, Retail 1 Comment

Products which have a quick turnover, and relatively low cost are known as Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Examples of FMCG generally include a wide range of frequently purchased consumer products such as toiletries, soap, cosmetics, tooth cleaning products, shaving products and detergents, as well as other non-durables such as glassware, bulbs, batteries, paper products, and plastic goods. FMCG may also include pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, packaged food products, soft drinks, tissue paper, and chocolate bars.

With the global economical turmoil and the fears of cost-cutting by consumers due to inflation some companies start being aggressive on the market with their promotions and some go beyond these classical offer by offering huge “Value Packs”.

But depending on different buying behavior, based on the market and its culture, these value packs sometimes do not succeed against the average basket that consumers would like to keep as low as possible and prefer buying low-unit packs.

I would like to know the behavior of Lebanese shoppers and consumers when it comes to move a product from the shelf to their basket, do they prefer low-unit packs or super-sized value packed products?


By Posted on Posted in Retail No Comments

  • RO: Auchan has revealed plans to double the number of stores it has in Romania by 2014.
  • PL: Auchan launched AuchanDirect.pl
  • CN: DIA China to switch focus to supermarkets
  • DE: INDITEX Zara Home sees more potential in Germany
  • MY: IKEA Malaysia bans single-use plastic bags
  • UK: AMAZON UK to open new DC in Staffordshire
  • US: LVMH Sephora to deliver in Manhattan
  • NL: JUMBO SUPERMARKTEN replaces Super de Boer private labels
  • AL: CARREFOUR to enter Albania in November
  • DE: ALDI Süd own brand manufacturer sued over product design by P&G
  • SE: Sweden-based electronics retailer OnOff has filed for bankruptcy
  • SI: Douglas Holding has closed its Douglas beauty stores in Slovenia
  • CN: Tesco is to open more than 20 new stores in China during 2011
  • FR: LECLERC France reports H1 sales growth of 5%
  • DE: AS WATSON Rossmann sales rise 12% in H1
  • EG: SUBWAY to double Egypt store numbers
  • CN: INDITEX Stradivarius opens in China
  • RU: AUCHAN Russia to open first Auchan Drive next year
  • RO: REWE GROUP Penny invests in Romania (EUR45 million)
  • LB: McDonald’s opens a new restaurant in Batroun, Lebanon
  • DE: REWE GROUP Penny works on major private label revamp
  • AU: COSTCO looks to Australia expansion
  • UK: MORRISONS plans own brand makeover

    • By Posted on Posted in Perfumes, Retail No Comments

    We use them everyday before we leave home. Some of us keep a bottle in the car or the office. We buy them frequently based on many factors, some of us use the same perfume for years and years, some others change it when the bottle is over and get a new brand just for a change.

    We all want to smell good when entering the elevator or going to a meeting or spending the day the office. This blog post came to me 2 hours ago after watching Larry Crowne, a movie by Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, where Mercy (Julia) tells Larry (Tom) he smells good after he took her home on his motorcycle.

    The European perfumes retail scene is divided between 3 majors players, 2 French, Marionnaud & Sephora and 1 German, Douglas.

    Now the competition between the 3 chains is not the retail sales of perfumes anymore, it is more about offering consumers (mainly female) beauty, make-up, skincare and well-being advices where products under these categories can have higher margins than branded perfumes.

    The target is also to develop a differentiated assortment and offering from each other as competitors. For example, Sephora has long understood it with its own brand (private label) and continues to build its reputation on this strategy.

    Another type of competition is rising between these perfumes chains and the drugstores, where some drugstores started some time ago offering branded perfumes at discounted prices and sometimes more competitive than the perfumes stores (because of volumes that can manage to sell), in return we have witnessed some perfumes stores offering products that used to sell only in supermarkets and drugstores such as men grooming products, just to have a full assortment and attract customers as one stop shop for their well-being needs.

    By Posted on Posted in Private Label, Retail, Switzerland 1 Comment

    Migros the Swiss retailer, will be extending its private label range, M-Budget, from 500 products to count 600 products by the end of this year. In addition, a modernization of the design of the packaging of many items has occurred during this extension process.

    Clients who will enter Migros stores during the coming days cannot miss the huge displays of green and white products. M-Budget range is appreciated by all generations but also by a growing number of small households, including one person who are willing to buy products with green and white packaging that are cheap and quality.

    Migros has also launched a poster campaign with the many facets of the M-Budget products

    By Posted on Posted in Brands, Retail No Comments

    Tesco has unveiled plans to become a global brand owner, kicking off the strategy this month with the launch of non-Tesco-branded ice-cream and pet-food ranges.

    It is examining all categories to find out where else it can create brands, with the ultimate goal being products that will be successful enough to be sold in non-competing retailers such as petrol stations and garden centres.

    ChokaBlok ice-cream, La-thams dog food and NutriCat cat food will be the first ‘venture brands’, as they are referred to internally, to come to market. The launches are being overseen by brands development director Sidonie Kingsmill.

    ‘Our own-label business is very mature, so we’re looking at what’s next,’ said Kingsmill. ‘Our venture brands are very different to own-label; they will never be “me-too” products. We look at where the customer opportunities are, where brands are not succeeding and what we can do in addition to brands. We’re in a unique position as the biggest retailer, with access to the best suppliers worldwide.’

    She added that brand owners such as Nestlé and Procter & Gamble knew about the launches, but claimed they ‘were not upset’ because the products offered something different and were good news for the overall category.

    Marketing for the products, which includes press ads, websites and sampling, refers to Tesco only as the stockist. The launch of NutriCat, a vet-approved nutritional range, is backed by sponsorship of ITV’s Animal Kingdom.

    All three brands will launch in Tesco’s central European stores in the coming weeks. The retailer also recently trademarked the term Carousel under the toy category and the word Muse in the confectionery category.

    This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk

    By Posted on Posted in Category Management, Retail No Comments

    All consumer markets of industrialized countries and now developing countries are characterized by great diversity of supply and an increasing complication in the process of products assortments by retailers. This major increase in the number of products on the shelves, which may also interfere in some cases with the store offer but also in the shopping process of consumers, has led the retailers to consider setting up a new approach to their assortment and relying on a more active collaboration with the suppliers.

    Category Management appeared as a tool for restructuring and optimizing the assortments in a cost-effective way. This trend is part of a broader stream introduced in the United States and in Europe in the 90s called Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) which aims to redefine and restructure the supply through the acceleration of information flow and process of delivery between the retailers and the brand owners.

    The supply side of ECR is not perceived by the consumer, while the demand side is referred to as category management, which includes merchandising, promotions, pricing and product mix.

    The principle of category management is to group all products by universe (food, personal care, home, leisure), then by categories and sub-categories based on their complementarity and similarity. For example a mother should find in the same aisle, diapers, baby milk, baby food jars, wet wipes, kid shampoo, etc …

    The key area of responsibility becomes the responsibility of the product itself. Therefore the retailers supply and purchases should be based on products grouping in coherent universe, then the management of procurement, supply chain logistics, merchandising and promotional activities in permanent liaison with the observed characteristics of the sale of the concerned products.

    By Posted on Posted in Hard Discount, Retail No Comments

    From their internal design and appearance which is far from looking like the shelves and displays of regular supermarkets and hypermarkets, hard-discount stores were considered restricted to “the poor”. Mostly these are low-income households with children who visit such stores but with the global economic changes and the market developments, the clientele of hard-discount are getting more diversified.

    Indeed, nowadays many middle-income households are also shopping at hard-discount stores because they are buying lots of basic goods, however, they still also shop in hypermarkets and supermarkets. This is actually what is called “zapping”, as consumers are unfaithful to products, brands and distribution channels. Thus, the hard discount stores have attracted an increasing population.

    70% of households in France visit at least once a year a hard-discount (secodip), this represents 2 of 3 French households. Households are more and more attracted by “cheap stores” or the what-so-called “every day low prices”.

    The hard-discount clientele can be divided into 4 categories:

    The disappointed:
    They attend more often hard-discount, as hypermarkets leave a very bad image in terms of price/quality. They also want to minimize the time spent doing their shopping, which is almost impossible in a hypermarket or supermarket. The average time spent in a hard-discount shop is 20 minutes, about 3 times less than in hypermarkets.

    The hedonist:
    This category takes pleasure while shopping and choosing products, which is why they occasionally visit hard-discounters because they are attracted by the promotions and the original products. But this does not prevent them from attending other store formats.

    Small budgets:
    They regularly attend hard-discount stores because they seek the lowest price and they appreciate the speed of service at check-outs.

    New brand seekers:
    They attend only occasionally hard-discounters because they are seduced by the unknown brands and their quality products. As a result, they do their main shopping in supermarkets and hypermarkets.

    No matter in which of the above categories the consumer falls, the 3 essential points in a hard-discount store are: low prices, speed of service and proximity. Hard-discounters also understood a very important aspect of daily shopping need of their consumers, which is “quality” and this is getting more obvious during their negotiations.

    It is almost impossible to create a standard profile for consumers and their shopping behavior, as each one of them creates his own shopping pattern based on the different distribution formats he has access to and depending on his needs.

    By Posted on Posted in Group Buying, Hypermarkets, Retail, Supermarkets No Comments

    The news is out, yesterday Groupon started partnering with a grocery chain to start a test program. But what value can this kind of partnership bring to groceries, supermarket and hypermarkets?

    In my opinion, it will not add any value.

    Why? Because food retailers all over the world and in partnership with brands, are into the “group buying” business without declaring it with these words, way before Groupon and all the rest and without any minimum quantity restrictions.

    Supermarkets and hypermarkets, on any given day, have an average of 100 promotions and discounted products on their shelves, websites, printed leaflets, …

    Brand owners, depending on the category, fight every 7 or 14 days to find a free space in the catalog of a retailer and most of these leaflets are showing only promoted products, price discounted items, buy1get1, value packs, etc… the promotion formats can be endless as brand owners can be very creative to push their sales.

    Not forgetting that also some food retailers, keep on always offering loyal consumers who are part of their loyalty programs, additional discounts and promotions, to make them feel more special.

    No matter what kind of promotion format Groupon or other group buying sites will use or offer their consumers, but surely it going to be déjà vu, specially that some retailers also started showing a countdown clock for promotions on their websites.

    By Posted on Posted in Products, Retail No Comments

    The Shelf, home of brands and products, the oxygen of sales, those few centimeters from which products get their extreme mojo, brands their loyalty from millions of daily consumers and find their way into their shopping carts and it is these shelves that allows companies and brand owners to grow their businesses and increase their margins and profitability.

    Consequently, the shelf, leads to an endless hidden war game, not seen by the consumers, between the people behind brands and products to have better shelf positioning.

    Everybody wants the best visibility and the largest displays, on flat shelf, all brands want to be on eye level, some multinationals pay tons of money to be on eye-level shelves and it is because of this brand positioning that retailers worldwide are taking advantage and imposing more and more tough conditions. Sometimes brand owners care more about the shelf than to book an order with the retailer.

    That is why at one point in time, category management (now treated as a science in the retail industry) was founded and plannograms are created, to maintain order on the shelf.

    This works perfectly if the category management (by brand or by product family) is applied strictly. Unfortunately not all retailers are taking advantage of this new science, which leads to big chaos on the shelves (in all categories of the store) and specially in basket freezers. Where merchandisers and salesmen of brands, visit the stores everyday and try to squeeze the competition and enlarge their visibility.

    It is an on-going cat and mouse game I’ve been seeing almost all around the world, in local small supermarkets or in international chains.

    Keeping in mind that retailers shuffle their assortments and plannograms every now and then, and make lots of changes, sometimes by kicking some products out of their stores or moving them to a different shelf level (eye-level, waist-level, knee-level and ankle-level), which can lead to a big sales drop as it can also lead to increasing the sales, depending on the reason of this change and the product in question.

    No matter what you are selling on the shelf, the relationship between brand owners and retailers, is one of the most important influences on that placement.