Retail execution for a consumer brand: shelf, display, availability

The advertising ran, the distributor delivered, and the general store down the road still did not sell your pack. It stood behind a bigger brand, or on the bottom shelf, or the fast size had run out and nobody reordered. A customer who asks for your product and is offered another one does not phone you. They buy the other one. Field staff exist to catch this last metre. But a visit without a routine turns into a chat with the shopkeeper, and a chat shows nothing the next visit can fix.

A visit in the order a shop lets you work

Use the same order each time so two people on the team record the same things.

From the street. Is your signboard or outside branding still up? Is the shop open at the hours you expected?

At the counter, before touching anything. Ask one question: "What do customers ask for that you do not have?" Write the answer in the shopkeeper's words.

Availability. For each product on your must-stock list, is it on the shelf or in the back? Note what is out and the reason given. Check pack sizes separately, because "stocked" can mean one size.

Shelf. Is your range together or scattered? At what height? Is it faced forward with the label readable? What stands on its left and right, and who is the nearest rival?

Display. Is the stand, strip or poster you supplied in place? If it is gone, ask where it went before you replace it.

Stock health. Look for damaged packs, dust, packs past a date printed on them and old packs sitting in front. Remove them with the shopkeeper's agreement.

Before you leave. Fix what you can, enter the visit, and, with the shopkeeper's permission, photograph the shelf from the same spot every time.

The must-stock list decides everything

Keep the list short: the fast sellers for that shop type, not the price list. A field person checking forty items will skip many. Eight to ten may be enough for a general store, and you can change the list every few months.

The list also gives you a score without a formula. Count how many of the eight are present in each pack size and note the number. Over a few weeks, patterns appear: one item always missing, one distributor always short.

Some gaps are not the shop's fault. If a shopkeeper stocks a rival's pack at eye level because its margin is better, tidying your shelf will not change that. Note it on the sheet as a margin issue and raise it with the distributor, with the shopkeeper's own words beside it. A field person who argues the point at the counter gains nothing and may lose the shop.

The visit sheet

Keep it to one page, so it can be filled in the shop.

Shop / town / distributor serving it:
Must-stock present (item x size):  ticks
Shelf position: eye / middle / low / not shown
Share of category shelf: about a quarter / half / most
Nearest rival and where it sits:
Display: in place / missing / damaged
Stock problems: damaged / old / none
Order taken / passed to distributor (quantity):
What the shopkeeper asked for, in their words:
Photo taken from the same spot: Y/N

What happens to the sheets

Give them to one person who reads for patterns, not shops: which item is missing most often, which distributor leaves gaps, which shops never keep the display. Then split the action. Field staff fix the shop. The sales head fixes the cause, which may be supply, pack size, margin or training. When a shop misses the must-stock list on two visits in a row, ask why before the third: supply from the distributor, margin against a rival, or shelf space. Supply problems go to the distributor, and a shop that does not want the range at all is not worth more of your visits.

For reading the numbers across a territory, see measuring dealer and distributor performance.

An invented example: an incense-stick brand around Hassan

Take an invented incense-stick brand from Bengaluru with a two-person field team covering general stores and pooja-item shops around Hassan. Each person had been told to "improve visibility" and each measured it differently.

They agreed a must-stock list of eight and one display worth keeping, a counter-top stand. In the first round the sheets showed something no one had named. The stand was present in most shops, but it hung near the door, away from the pooja items. Shopkeepers had put it there because it fitted. The brand's best-selling pack stood two shelves below a rival at the pooja corner.

The mistake was counting the stand as presence without asking where it stood. The remedy was a rule on the sheet: stand within arm's reach of the pooja items, or it counts as missing. The field team moved the stands during the visit and asked shopkeepers to leave them. At the next round the sheet showed the stand in the right spot in the shops that had agreed, and some shops had moved it back. The team recorded those separately, and the sales head took the matter to the distributor as a margin question.

When it is not worth the effort

If the product sells through a handful of key accounts, such as a few modern trade stores, visit those and skip the mass checklist. If it is bought mainly through a link on a phone, the shelf matters little. And if you cannot act on what the sheets show because supply is out of your hands, collecting them only produces guilt. Fix supply first.

Take the eight items on ten visits

Pick the eight items, print the sheet and use it on your next ten visits. After that, change the list, not the habit.

Retail execution and merchandising is the service that helps with the list, the sheet and the review routine, and the rest of our sales work sits under sales. To start, tell us what you need.