ShelfSnap accesses thousands of in-store pictures each week.  This provides abundant opportunity to analyze store level data, understand what consumers truly face at retail and extract valuable intelligence for our clients.

The data uniquely available to ShelfSnap from the pictures include:

• Items Shelf State - presence, facings, position and conditions.
• Shelf Environment - adjacencies, blocking, flow and shelf    configuration.
• Compliance to the plan for the space.

Traditional analysis focused on out of stocks, typically misses compliance to plan.  In fact, often we observe shelf sections with no out of stocks, and yet not one item on the shelf is in compliance with the planograms or the merchandising plan.  In these cases the section is entirely "shoppable" but the shelf is full of the wrong assortment.

This week we look not at deviation from the plan but at the actual condition of the shelf. 

Our service offers a data interpretation of the shelf condition or how they were intended to be.  We call it the Snapogram.

 

Figure 1:  Strategic Representation of store shelf in a Snapogram

Pictured is a carbonated beverage segment.  The figure on the right is the ShelfSnap Snapogram.  The view fills in the facings as the plan intended.  Note the Red Pop facings filled to the left on the third shelf from the bottom.

Note that this view would have correctly identified the four traditional out of stocks that a manual hand-scan audit might have found as well.  However, our view also treated the Red Pop on the third shelf from the bottom correctly as a three facing item, filling in the two slots on the left of the product occluded by the cards.   This view is the basis for our planogram output, our Snapogram - Planogram comparison and the statistics below.

Figure 2 - Data from the Snapogram

In Figure 2 we have extracted the meaningful shelf status information from the picture.  If we are comparing to a planogram, we generate a deviation from plan report.

Figure 3:  Tactical View

In Figure 3, we experiment with a new view.  In this view the shelf holes or Understocks remain next to the Red Pop.  Understocks are the fourth member of the out of stock family.  (Pease see ShelfSnap Newsletter Vol 9 How Much Deviation from Your In-Store Plan Can You Afford?).  Also identified in this Tactical view are products mis-oriented, misplaced and traditionally out of stock.  
 
Scoring the merchandising conditions of the shelf would create an industry benchmark for in store conditions.  This "shop-ability rate" would look at the number of defects or product problems and consider the impact to the customers' ability to find and purchase the item they wish to buy.
 
Do you have a view about the shopability score or the need for the Tactical view?  Let us know at  Shelf Conditions.

Meanwhile, it is fascinating that the only slot of Red Pop that is not decimated by shoppers is the slot behind the cards . . .

Measuring compliance has been a problem for so long that some people have concluded that it cannot be solved.  Now, a Blue Ribbon Panel of CPG Industry deep thinkers like Bishop, Harris and Weber have determined that these issues can be solved.