MINNEAPOLIS - General Mills Convenience has launched a new website, generalmillsconvenience.com, designed to help convenience store retailers and distributors tap into the power of category management to make the best decisions for their business. The new site offers a multitude of short video tutorials on category management principles and allows retailers to download regional rank reports and planograms or request custom reports using their unique product-level sales data.
"At its simplest, category management is managing each product category as its own business, ensuring you have the right product mix in the right place," said Drew Helmey, associate channel marketing manager for General Mills Convenience, in a press release. "Retailers may be looking at many pieces of the category management puzzle to make decisions about their categories. With the expertise of our CategoryFirst category management consultants, we??re able to provide them the training and the tools they need to put these pieces together and maximize their categories."
The videos provide an in-depth look at how to effectively use the rank reports and planograms available through the site to make informed decisions for their categories. Topics include an overview on the data used to create rank reports and planograms, how to use these tools to select the best items for the shelf, and how to best merchandise those products to maximize shopability.
The new site also allows convenience store retailers and distributors to obtain customized rank reports based on a store??s unique sales performance data. Retailers and distributors can upload their own store specific product-level sales data through the site to receive custom rank reports for the bar, warehouse salty, cookie/cracker and breakfast-on-the-go categories.
"The custom rank reports allow retailers to best leverage the information specific to their business, to maximize shelf space and make sure they are not leaving any potential profit on the table," said Helmey. "If retailers and distributors are able to successfully grow their overall categories then the entire convenience channel will benefit."