OREANDA-NEWS. July 5, 2011. Federal retail trade chain "Lenta" for the second year in a row wins the first place in nomination "The Best case in category management" at the Annual forum of the Russian branch of international organization ECR*

This year, the 7-th ECR Forum was held on June 7 and 8 in Moscow in the Hall of Assemblies of the Temple of Christ the Savior and gathered about 1000 experts of trade retail and FMCG industry. More than 50 reports were presented in Forum's program describing successful joint projects of retail trade systems and suppliers in the areas of category management, optimization of delivery chains, out-of-stocks and losses reduction, EDI introduction, application of mobile commerce.

For ECR-2011 contest, "Lenta" presented a case on category management in the segment of cheeses, developed together with Arla Company. Successful realization of the project allowed to increase sales in the present category in the chain of hypermarkets several times.

During implementation of the project we have conducted a number of buyers researches: how clients make a decision on purchasing a certain kind of cheese; what influences their decision-making; a detailed analysis of the category and the market of this group of goods as a whole.

"After we started to analyze this category, it became obvious, that segmentation is carried out not on the basis of consumer's perception, but by a production principle. For example, "processed cheese", "semi-hard cheese", "hard cheese", "cottage cheese", "cheeses with mould" – shared his experience Sergey Syamichev, the leading category manager of the direction "Gastronomy, dairy products".

"The research also showed that consumers do not speak "cheese language", they classify cheeses differently – by the functional principle: cheese for sandwiches, cooking, delicacies and snacks", - continues Valentine Savelieva, manager on category management projects of the company.

Another interesting fact is that buyers take a decision on the method of use and the kind of cheese well in advance. The choice of the concrete mark, manufacturer, weight and less often grade of cheese takes place directly in the store.

According to the results of the analysis of this category and studying the buyers’ behavior, we decided to drop the least popular grades of cheese, and to introduce the new ones with high turnover values. More so, we tried to develop new navigation system in the cheese section, which would not just better inform the buyer but also help him to feel free with any of the novelties.

Results have surpassed our expectations: buyers have noted, that it became easier for them to find their way in the cheese section, they spend less time looking for the desired grade of cheese, and the bright informative navigation allows to make the correct choice.

Last year was equally successful for implementation of joint project of "Lenta" Company and Danone in sour-milk category. Growth in the dairy group of products according to the results of the project made 17 %.

*ECR Community is a noncommercial partnership of retail trade chains and suppliers, whose mission is to better satisfy the buyers’ demand, faster and with less costs involved.

ECR Russia became the initiator of introduction of modern technologies in the Russian retail trade, including category management, EDI, shelf ready packaging, application of electronic invoices.