Ahold value improvement program

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World Show more World. US Show more US. Companies Show more Companies. Markets Show more Markets. The SKU reduction initiative has taken place across the store even in departments such as produce where some competitors are looking to broaden selection to meet the needs of what is perceived as an increasingly diverse and culinary adventurous consumer base.

Will it bring the chains to the point where they can become perceived as being truly price competitive? You must be logged in to post a comment. Eliminating slow movers? Well, great human judgment is needed. Produce items with such slow movement that a single case results in majority spoilage?

The 12th top selling mustard in the third size? The item that only sells in volume 1 week a year? What about the ethnic item that sells in only 5 locations out of ? Centralizing and consolidating these functions will often result in inexperienced buyers and category managers trying to to oversee markets they have little knowledge of.

The final result is a store full of items nobody wants. Look at what Ahold did to Tops as proof. It would be impossible with their high labor and rent costs to be price competitive with stores like Wal-Mart or Aldi. Just like they will never offer the quality and service levels of a Wegmans or Whole Foods.

They are stuck in the supermarket hourglass. Are they really under-faced on their highest volume items? Driving towards maximizing inventory return per item may work at cross purposes with its whole strategic positioning. Paring away slow-movers may accomplish this, and coincidentally reduce some out-of-stocks on faster movers. But filling in facings has an undesirable side effect of increasing the proportion of shelf inventory in excess of 7 days of supply.

If VIP decisions are being made chainwide—then I suspect a likely outcome may be improvements in supply chain efficiencies and possibly lower shelf replenishment costs but coupled with a lower return on shelf space.

The acid test will be consumer perception. Culling slow movers has always been an integral part of the merchandising function. I believe that approach will lead to lost market share. I agree with David, this is a huge step in the wrong direction. Retailers who want to stay ahead of the game need to focus on Shopper Insights in their mix of how to run their businesses properly. Plus, Ahold putting price over Service is bad idea 2. SKU rationalization may make sense across some categories, but doing this across all categories will upset consumers to the point that they will stop shopping at that outlet.

Ahold is assuming that consumers will accept a limited selection across all categories. There are some categories where consumers may not even notice a change in assortment—but there are other categories where consumers are looking for variety, for innovation and new products, and for a broad choice of assortment.

It has been said that successful food retailers have a strong Sense of Theater. In larger supermarkets, when you take away the variety, color, displays and packaging from the shelves—slow movers included—you dim the lights and lessen the appeal of the theater. One can easily argue both sides of this topic. On the other, this limits choice, and prevents the introduction of new products. In most respects I am with the less is more philosophy.

My wife and I grocery shop together, her to complete the task, me for the adventure. You only have to watch consumers in a category like toothpaste to realize our grocery stores are infested with SKU proliferation. Recently I watched my wife, an incredibly intelligent women, take well over 5 minutes to find the Crest Toothpaste with Scope that she wanted.

Is there that much of a need for a 6. This only makes sense. Getting rid of slow movers dogs for high moving product is the name of the game. The Pareto Rule, rules! Twenty percent of your product is responsible for eighty percent of the volume. If you are out of the twenty percent and not cost competitive, it will be noticed.

Of course, management has to think growth is possible. They are going about this the wrong way. Investor Day Our brands. Ahold Delhaize share buyback update December 14, Ahold Delhaize share buyback update December 7, Our Ambition. Ahold Delhaize share buyback update January 11, Albert Heijn begins the next steps of gradually introducing Nutri-Score.

Ahold Delhaize commences share buyback program. Share Price Bid -. Share Price EBR -. Change -.