The number of different products available in supermarkets has nearly tripled since the 1980s. The volume of choices overwhelms many customers, creating a challenge for retailers.
Savencia, a world leader in cheese products, sells its cheese products across Intermarché supermarkets. Like many markets, the self-service cheese at Intermarché is traditionally segmented by family – soft cheeses, hard cheeses, pressed cheeses, cream cheeses, etc. But survey results revealed this is not aligned with consumers’ shopping habits. Therefore, Intermarché and Savencia decided to join forces to redefine the merchandising strategy of the cheese shelves.
In order to facilitate the collaboration, both companies adopted the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and the Perfect Shelf solution on the cloud. As a result, Intermarché and Savencia teams are able to work simultaneously in a single environment to share information, draw up plans and validate them through virtual testing.
Because the solution is on the cloud, deployment was fast, resources are immediately accessible and information is automatically updated. The retailer was involved throughout the entire process including shaping how the shelf should be organized. In the end, a new segmentation strategy was designed, and directly validated at the point of sale in only a third of the time.
Working on the platform offers a high degree of flexibility, allowing key decisions to be made quicker. The planograms were richer because they benefited from a collective experience. Ten stores tested this approach with the main objective being to increase revenue per square meter at the point of sale. Not only was the retailer convinced that the new segmentation is better, but customer feedback was positive and figures showed a 4% sales increase.
For both companies the partnership has proven to be an innovative and trusted one. Intermarché and Savencia are considering expanding this collaborative approach for the self-service cheese category in all Intermarché stores in France. To discover more, watch the video now.
