At the starting line of a category management project

After the years of recession, in category management it is becoming more and more realistic a goal once again to achieve a sales increase. Nielsen contributes to this by organising category management workshops like the one to be held in Budapest this November.

When a consumer puts a product in their basket, they make many decisions (e.g. when buying carbonated soft drink: light or regular, small or big size, which brand, etc.). Which characteristics of the product are important to the customers when deciding? It is a difficult question to answer but manufacturers and retailers must answer it if they want to offer the right products to consumers. One of the tasks is to examine the selection offered in categories to see if there is any kind of product missing; the next step can be analysing product characteristics to decide which needs to be communicated. In-depth knowledge is necessary about how shoppers buy certain categories and companies that do have this knowledge are already standing at the starting line of a category management project. As consumption and buying habits keep changing rapidly, manufacturers and retailers are becoming more interested in category management than before. Why? Because they wish to react to new situations. Nielsen can help them in this with its category management workshops. We monitor 90 food and 70 household chemical and cosmetics categories to give partners an insight into the market and its trends. For manufacturers the main advantage of category management projects is that they can improve sales results. What is more, they can also establish close relationships with retailers. From a retailer perspective category management projects can better the image of stores and chains, plus they can attract new customers and make old ones more loyal. Not to mention that they also get an advantage over their competitors