Welcome back to our comprehensive Category Management Glossary Series! Whether you’re a seasoned professional looking to brush up on industry terminology or new to the world of CatMan, this series is your go-to resource for understanding key concepts and terms. Category Management is defined as a strategic approach to procurement and retailing that focuses on arranging similar products to maximize efficiency and profitability. It involves analyzing data, understanding consumer behavior, and collaborating with retailers and suppliers to drive growth and innovation.
Throughout this series, we’ll dive deep into the terminology that shapes the supply chain landscape. From defining basic terms to exploring advanced concepts, we’ll provide valuable words to know and acronyms to help you succeed in your industry. Join us on this journey as we unravel the complexities of Category Management jargon and empower you with the knowledge to excel in today’s competitive market. Let’s begin!
- 3DVR Solutions: 3DVR transforms planograms and floor plans into immersive 3D environments, merge departments, aisles, and planograms together for precise store representation.
- Action List: The process used by Planogram Generator to apply products and merchandising rules from a ‘Template Planogram’ to ‘Target Planograms.’
- Activity Based Costing (ABC): A cost accounting method that identifies and assigns costs to activities based on their consumption of resources.
- Adjacencies: Shelves/Planograms adjacent to each other. How the shelf is organized and the products that are adjacent to your brand will influence shopper perceptions and viewing of your product.
- Application Programming Interface (API): A set of protocols and tools for building software applications, allowing them to communicate and interact with each other.
- Application Support: Whether you are hosting your own implementation, are in Blue Yonder SaaS, or are our guests in the Cantactix Cloud, our experienced Service Desk is here to support you whenever you need assistance. Learn more here.
- Assortment Distribution: The number of stores where an assortment or an item in an assortment is merchandised.
- Assortment Optimization (AO): Combine Blue Yonder Assortment Optimization automation and an assortment planner’s product knowledge to product intelligent, space aware product assortments.
- Assortment: A selection of products chosen based on attributes like consumer need and retailer strategy to maximize efficiency and commercial return within a category or store.
- Base Depth: The physical distance between the back and front of the base shelf.
- Base Shelf: The lowest shelf on a fixture.
- Baseline Sales: Those sales of a product that would have occurred had there been no promotional or marketing activity.
- Blocking: Grouping of products to present a unified display, either horizontally or vertically.
- Blue Yonder (BY): Blue Yonder is the world leader in digital supply chain transformations and omni-channel commerce fulfillment. They provide an end-to-end, cognitive supply chain software.
- Bracket: Equipment used to support hanging products from a gondola.
- Brand Blocking: Grouping items on the shelf by their brand.
- Bulk Stacking: Use of in-store displays to create a visual impact and encourage bulk purchasing.
- Business Rule Validation (BRV): The process of validating and enforcing business rules within a system or process.
- Can Combine: When two adjacent fixtures with “can combine” enabled allow products to flow from one shelf to the next.
- Cannibalization: Sales for an added product taking sales from other products in the same assortment.
- Cantactix University (CXU): From self-paced online training to live in-person or virtual training, our team can assist you in learning the Blue Yonder Category Management Suite effectively. Learn more here.
- Case Size: The number of products in an outer case.
- Consumer Decision Tree (CDT): The order of priority in which shoppers make their purchasing decisions. The hierarchy is usually described like a family tree and details the various product attributes.
- Category Knowledge Base (CKB): Blue Yonder CKB is a powerful relational data repository that enables you to manage retail planograms, fixtures, floorplans, store/cluster data, product attributes, and performance information.
- Category Knowledge Server (CKS): A server that stores and manages category-related knowledge, often used in retail systems.
Category Management is a dynamic and complex discipline, and understanding the key concepts and terms is crucial for success. As you continue to explore and apply these concepts in your work, remember that building planograms or modulars is not just about arranging products on shelves—it’s about driving growth, innovation, and customer satisfaction. We look forward to sharing more insights and knowledge with you in future articles. Stay tuned for our next installment, where we’ll delve into even more essential terms and acronyms. Subscribe to our glossary series to get all our Category Management education content right to your inbox: