I’m sure many of you would have felt that with too many television channels around, it has become really difficult to focus and follow your favorites? Similarly with the explosion of content on World Wide Web, it has become far more cumbersome to zero – in on the information you desire. Guess what, there is a similar trend taking place in the product assortment at the store.
Per latest consumer research performed in UK by Consumer Marketing Capitalism, more and more people are complaining about having too many variants of the same brand leading to increased confusion and at times frustration in consumers’ mind.
If these findings are to be believed, it is probably detrimental for the brand managers to have myriad number of variants of the same brand on the shelf. Probably each brand has a tipping point beyond which the extra number of sub-Brands cannibalizes on their cousins anyway. What is significant is for the Brand managers to identify the tipping point and single out those sub brands who together supplement the sales rather than eating into each others share.
Similarly the category managers at the Retail end have an equally important role to play. Considering the proximity to POS data, they should pick out the significant few and get rid of problematic plenty. This will lead to increased profit as well as improved customer satisfaction.
