Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

Eye Share

The effective sale of a brand is a function of many things, including Image, Availability, Awareness, Need Price and Shopping Habits among many other things.  One of the more influential environments has been the ever changing shopping arena.  During the past 25 years, the supermarket has progressed through evolutionary changes.  While the neighborhood store has disappeared, we now have the convenience store and the mega markets intermingled among the discount merchants.  During the past half century, my focus has been in the supermarket area.  It all started while working with one of the national chains as a stock clerk and the setting up of new stores.  Following graduation, I went to work for Procter & Gamble.  However, my focus was never too far from the supermarket and how the changes were affecting the sale of our products.

In the early days, our focus was on displays, events and shelf space.  It was not just shelf space but we were interested in having our brands placed on specific shelves.  We knew that eye contact was of major importance.  Majority of sales were spontaneous.  So we wanted our brands to be within primary eye tracking area as the shopper traveled down the store aisle.  There was limited interest in whether the brand was in the front, middle or the back of the aisle.  We knew that the shopper was ultimately going to pass that area of the aisle.

That was yesterday.  Today as we explore the shopping habits of the modern day shopper, we -- through the use of PathTracker -- have learned that what was true yesterday, may not be true today.  As I wrote about last month in the Views titled, "Are we really blind to the obvious?" the shopping habits have greatly changed.  Shoppers no longer travel down all the store aisles.  Most shopping trips do not involve even half of the store.  Actually, our PathTracker data shows that 85% of the shopping trips do not involve half of the store area.

That was last month, what else is new?  Dr. Herb Sorensen is working on a new concept of "Eye Share."  It now appears that the position within the store aisle is of major importance.  It just may be in your best interest to have your brands in the first or last 10 feet of the end of the aisle.  It may be that the first or last few feet are about as important as the end cap.  Well not totally, but almost.

"Eye Share" is a very new topic.  I will keep you posted on the progress of the concept.

Bottom Line:  Things are changing, we need to continually study what is happening, why, and how we can make it work to our advantage.

Old and Future Views

There are two web sites containing all the Views written since 1994.  They are "mrlibrary.com" and "popsg.org."  I have written many times about the mrlibrary.com site but never about the popsg.org site.  This site is devoted to persons who are proponents of in-store research.  If you are currently NOT receiving the Views directly from me or Janet Pizzarello and would like to receive copies on a regular basis as they are distributed, let me know.  Call me at (859) 331-1230 or email me at views@aol.com.  Please if you email, put something in the subject area mentioning Views. Unfortunately, I use the "delete" key often because of all the spam.

Sponsor:  Sorensen Associates Inc      Portland, OR  800.542.4321        Minneapolis, MN  888.616.0123
The In-Store Research Company


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