Retail Academy: Strategies for the Beginning of the Year

In recent times, the profile of our customers has evolved significantly, changing their shopping habits to maximize savings without compromising quality and product variety. This change has led to consumers visiting our stores more frequently, but buying in smaller quantities.

Faced with this new reality and taking advantage of the start of a new year, it is crucial to adapt the product assortments in our supermarkets to fully satisfy our customers’ needs.

This does not necessarily imply increasing variety, but rather optimizing it to facilitate customer choice and reduce operating costs, allowing us to offer more competitive prices.

COST REDUCTION AND EFFICIENT ASSORTMENT

To achieve a significant reduction in commodity prices, it is necessary to eliminate unnecessary costs through strategic assortment reduction.

Hispanic supermarkets are known for the great variety of our assortment, and it is not a matter of taking that variety away from our customers but rather of analyzing each product family by family. In this case, the retailers themselves are gaining competitiveness by eliminating several intermediary players between the manufacturer or official distributor and our buyer.

This will make us more price competitive in our stores. This approach has become a global trend to keep assortments efficient and focused on real customer needs.

LESS IS MORE IN MODERN RETAILING

Contrary to the retail practices of the 20th and early 21st centuries, where a wide variety of products was promoted, modern retail prioritizes convenience and speed in the shopping process. A more intelligent and optimized assortment avoids customer confusion, speeds up decision making and encourages loyalty and frequency of visits to our stores.

ASSORTMENT OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

Most of the improvements and price reductions can be achieved by matching products in our aisles.

Leading chains such as Walmart and Kroger have already implemented assortment strategies based on reducing inventory and increasing product rotation.

This process must be meticulous and precise, as any error in assortment purging can negatively affect sales.

It is essential to maintain continuous feedback and constant communication with our customers to ensure that our decisions reflect their needs and preferences.