In terms of consumer non-availability Safeway, with 24% unavailable for non-promoted products and a massive 37.5% for promoted products, takes the trophy. Here it is worth re-emphasising that we use four regionally separated stores as our sample. In the category 15% of total skus were promoted across all stores.
Moving on to optimising the stock on the facing, we have been asked what this means and what positive action should be taken on the results. Optimisation is when the last person through the door picks up the product that he/she wants, and it is the last product on the shelf, everything else having sold through. Obviously this is an unreal position but it is a guide to improving shelf turnover.
With a high figure for inefficiently faced stock, the first improvement you could make is to devote more space to those products that are out of stock. Alternatively, the category might be in need of more promotion or POP support, or there is too much category space.
Obviously this reflects the group performance, and smaller basket sizes and lower store throughput has the same effect in reducing efficiency.
In the case of crisps, it looks as if Somerfield has got it right, with 41% inefficient on normal stock and 13% for promoted.
This lesson may be something that Safeway and Asda should take on board because each has high inefficiencies and may need to reduce the area devoted to standard stock (Asda) or increase the space for their bestsellers (Safeway).


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