02/10/05 Category management and fruit sales, Pt.4

02/10/05 Category management and fruit sales, Pt.4

As more and more fruit shipping sales desks incorporate category management as a way to improve sales, the more they see the real world applications of the system. Robert Kershaw of Domex is quick to point out that by using the quantitative data gathered through category management, fruit growers and shippers can determine even the basic of business decisions, such as what varieties of fruit to plant. And that means getting involved in long term planning. KERSHAW: It takes seven years to get your production and it just takes forever. You need to be looking down the road at the insights; you need to be drilling down into not only what is selling right now, but who's buying it. And is it the sixty year old or the eighty year old person who's buying, or is it the twenty one year old mother with kids. Meaning as younger consumers buy specific varieties on a consistent basis, more and more trees with those varieties will be planted. West Mathison of Stemilt Growers adds that from the planning standpoint, category management also has short term benefits for both the retailer and the sales desks. MATHISON: You walk into a retailer and you say, "We need to do a late July promotion". And they go, "So does every other commodity that walks through this store". And really category management gives us the business plan to go to the retailer. So it gives us the facts where we have something legitimate and objective that we can sit down with them and explain to them and step them through the process of why this is a good decision.
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