Retail product management

Retail product management is not just about making sure that the best product range is available in the store. Equally important to the customer is how products are presented to them.The way products are displayed, whether it is on a shelf in a store or on a web site, the logic of the layout, the relationship between one product group and another and the atmosphere created around the products, are all-important aspects of the retail product management process.

In a small retail organisation product management may be incorporated into the general running of the store. In a quiet moment an owner/manager may phone through an order to a supplier or stock up a depleted shelf display; but in large retail organisations product management is an extensive task, involving many different layers of management and dedicated teams of experts in massive central buying offices.

Product management is a strategic process, supported, in the case of a large retailer, by a complex array of operational practices and organisational structures. Strategic product management shapes the direction of growth that a retailer takes in response to changing consumer requirements, whilst carving out a market position to appeal to identified consumer market groups. Its strategic contribution is augmented by the role that product management takes in keeping operational costs as low as possible whilst generating sales volumes to maximise profitability. It is also about managing risks, identifying and pursuing product/market opportunities, whilst making realistic assessments about the resources available to do so. Introducing new products is a very good way of achieving differentiation and enhancing a retail identity in an over-subscribed retail market, but without corporate support new products may fail or go unnoticed.

Operational product management moves product planning from ideas to reality, but the completion of the product management process takes place at the outlet level where the product/consumer interface occurs. It is product managers within the retail outlets who implement space allocation and visual display plans; it is at the store level where "availability" becomes the difference  between full or empty shelves, and it is within the outlet that attention is drawn by "in-store marketing" and customer sales service to particular products or brand offerings.