Category Management
Product Selection
Maximizing product sales comes from a combination of offering only best selling products in your machines plus product rotation to keep the machine fresh. Careful selection and rotation of the best selling products within a Category ensures both variety and consumer interest. which means maximum machine sales.
Plan-O-Grams are product placement "maps" that guide route drivers to ensure that both proper Category representations occurs and that only top selling products are in your machines. While spirals assigned to Categories generally remain constant, specific plan-o-gram products are changed every few weeks (the "menu period") to ensure maximum product variety exists in each machine.
Products should fall into three categories:
Core Products
A few, key products that deserve placement in "every machine, every day"
Primary Products
The majority of the products on a plan-o-gram that change between menus, but are in every machine during the menu period.
Flex Products
Specific product options to allow route drivers the ability to vary their product sets by account.
NOTE: It is important that route options for "flex product" plan-o-gram positions are as carefully selected as other menu items. "Flex product" does not mean "any product" - otherwise warehouse inventory control and Category Management implementation becomes ineffective.
Vary specific Primary and Flex products between menu cycles while maintaining category facing provides a balance between critical product variety requirements and total consumer category demand.
