Store Wars Quotes

“As the accessibility of transport increases, the advantage of location decreases.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“When trade and consumer marketing conflict, trade will often ‘win’ (especially towards the end of the financial year) because its effects are immediate, whereas consumer marketing is more concerned with objectives that pay back over time, like building the brand image and maintaining premium prices. Hence, a balance between the two needs to be achieved. Below we look at the areas of potential conflict.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Another approach is to become category lieutenants. This is where a smaller supplier looks to complement the category captain by providing niche brands where the captain is weak or absent, and perhaps offering me-toos to reduce the dominance of the category captain. For example, Method15 act like a category lieutenant in Safeway by providing niche high-end cleaning products that supplement the category captain Clorox’s portfolio. An alternative view of the category, and alternative brands that pressure the category leader, are always welcomed by retailers. No retailer wants to be dependent on its largest supplier.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Smaller players, who recognise they cannot call themselves category captains, have to take a different approach. Some of them aim to have preferred supplier status, which means they select a retailer or group of retailers that they invest disproportionately in, and thus provide the retailers with services that increase the value of the brands to them over the retailers’ competitors. However,”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Category captains are recognised by retailers as having the greatest knowledge of consumer behaviour and mechanics in a category, and usually will have the most comprehensive range. Retailers believe that stocking this manufacturer’s range, backed with their understanding of positioning, merchandising, shelf allocation etc., should optimise sales. This”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Since the retailers have the data, and since both benefit from its analysis, but only the manufacturer has the specialisation to make it worthwhile, cooperation is necessary.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“The retailer is interested in the consumers’ behaviour in each of the two or three hundred categories it offers, but owing to a lack of critical mass in each category, the retailer does not have the budget or the personnel to discover the information. However, for a manufacturer, concentrating on a small set of categories, it is worthwhile. The manufacturer can relate in-store data with the information collected from consumer research: how consumers choose in this category, which consumers choose what, which brands compete most closely with each other and which command the greatest brand loyalty. Since”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“manufacturers do play a role in category planning because they can synthesise their experiences across the different chains they serve, both nationally and internationally. They have the critical mass to make it worthwhile to conduct research on different segments and in-store buying behaviour. In particular, it is worthwhile for a manufacturer to analyse the retailer’s scanner data for the category, even when it is not economic for the retailer to do so for each of its many categories.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Maximise efficiency by limiting and simplifying the range of products handled: This objective usually works against the other objectives, but limiting customers to a smaller range reduces handling, inventory and shelfspace costs. Profits per square foot will usually be increased by reducing the space taken by a category.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“A well-planned category will satisfy the largest proportion of shoppers, actualise every potential sale and prompt unplanned purchases. Profits will be affected by the mix of sales: the range should price-discriminate, satisfying price-sensitive customers while earning higher margins from quality-sensitive shoppers. For many retailers, category planning also involves promoting their private label brands.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Within the category, what is the optimal combination of brands and formats to cover the maximum buying intentions, and what is the optimal price structure for discriminating without losing sales? Retailers”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“A manufacturer taking a category-based view understands the role of the category within different chains and store formats, as different retailers have different category objectives. Retailers”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Category management is something of a misnomer; category understanding may be a better goal. Category understanding should be an effort to see the market from the retail point of view, and offer brands/SKUs that retailers want to stock. The idea is not to sell to retailers what you want to produce, but produce what they want to sell and their shoppers want to buy.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“In addition to price and terms of payment, the retailer faces a number of non-price costs. All the actions from loading delivery trucks, unpacking cases, mixing the right assortment of SKUs, labelling prices and arranging displays add up to a significant part of the cost. Tesco now have 70% of their stock delivered in shelf-ready packaging that requires minimum effort from their staff. Choices made by the supplier will affect these costs. Separating”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Marketing aims/image: A retailer that has positioning aims (e.g. trying to improve its image with respect to healthy food or trying to upstage wholesaler clubs with huge packs) will value products that strengthen those positions.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“The ideal category offers alternatives in all major segments, covers a range of price points and optimises impulse buying. Since retailers focus on categories, manufacturers need to view their brand as being part of a category, and should aim to create (or invest in) brands that have a category-strategic, rather than simply a brand-strategic, role.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Marketing support: Marketing targeted at the consumer is likely to improve rotation, and may affect margins. This is why promotional support directed at the consumer can be counted as an incentive to the retailer. However,”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“If the manufacturer can convince the retailer that delisting will hurt consumer satisfaction and possibly lead to store switching, then that will be second in importance to direct profits. As stores now segment their shoppers into groups relevant to their marketing effort (e.g. irregular stock-up shopper), manufacturers need to show how their presence, or their marketing activity, might matter to key shopper segments.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Box 10.1 Direct Product Profitability Equation The more benefits and costs are broken into”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“To win, manufacturers must offer more value, in the eyes of the retail customer, than their competitors do. To”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Total global trade spend is now estimated to be over $125 billion, well above the total profits of the major retailers, and McKinsey estimate it to be typically 30% of an FMCG manufacturer’s cost base, second only to the cost of goods at 40%.1”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Shelfspace, number of facings, position, local promotion, advertising, information from scanning data and choice of new products are all key assets for retailers. Selling”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Retailers, who once sold their assets for money, are now only willing to grant them to manufacturers who have something unique to offer, or who show a willingness to help them satisfy their own objectives.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Once negotiations begin, nine-tenths of the battle is over. The balance of power is dictated by brand loyalty, store loyalty, shopping habits, retail structure and manufacturer size, and the extent to which the two parties understand these parameters.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“No brand is totally safe from private labels. Manufacturer brands can only survive by being unique, well branded and backed with real, fast innovations.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“P&G, Mars, Kellogg’s, Gillette and Coca-Cola all refuse private label contracts, while, on the other hand, Unilever, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Heinz, Playtex, Ralston Purina, Hershey, RJR Nabisco and McCain embrace them.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“They need to rediscover what made them successful in the first place: consumer insight, customer knowledge, innovation and brand-building. The adoption of open-innovation strategies by majors such as Nestlé and P&G is a reflection of their need to ramp up innovation speed and capabilities.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Manufacturers have one advantage that can never be overcome if used with focus, vigour and investment, and that is innovation. Yogurt, seemingly an ideal category for private label to take the lion’s share, has seen private label share decline. The top-five leaders, Danone, Yoplait/Sodiaal, Yakult Honsha, Nestlé and Müller, represent half of all yogurt sales. Their innovation has been developing premium products, like pro-biotic yogurt and yogurt enhanced with fruit, and they launch continually; between 2006 and 2010 Danone introduced nine new products. Although retailers have developed brands, Aldi has Fit & Active non-fat yogurt and Kroger has Carb Master Yogurt, they haven’t won over consumers, owing to their lack of innovation. Both are seeing sales decline.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Of the Top Most Valued Brands in 2011, Coca-Cola and Marlboro were 6th and 8th, with their brands valued at $73.8 billion and $67.5 billion. Although retailers have developed private label cola and cigarettes, they can’t position them like these brands, using anything like the Open Happiness campaign and the Marlboro Man, because the private label imagery is intimately tied to the store’s imagery, which by definition will always have to be very broad and bland in comparison.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store

“Although private label shoppers benefit from not having to pay for flashy advertising, private labels miss out on a key brand role: being vehicles for self-expression. It’s difficult to keep manufacturer brands in the must-stock category based on the price/quality spectrum, so they rely on creating desirable imagery that cannot be found in a retailer’s portfolio.”
― Greg Thain, Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store