Welcome back to the second installment of our Category Management Glossary Series this year! This series is your go-to resource for key concepts and terms. There can be a lot of jargon to understand, but we’re here to guide you. As you progress from basic to advanced concepts, we’ll provide useful words and acronyms to help you succeed. We aim to empower you with the knowledge you need to succeed in today’s competitive market.
- Category Management (CatMan): A strategic approach to managing product categories as independent business units to optimize sales and profitability.
- Category Management Association (CMA): Industry organization that focuses on advancing the practice of Category Management in the retail industry and exists to facilitate strategic collaboration between retailers, suppliers, and their solution providers.
- Category Management Suite (CMS): The Blue Yonder (formerly JDA Software) Category Management Suite ties together processes that are typically conducted independently of one another, delivering integrated control of in-store merchandising.
- Category Planning Process (CPP): The process of planning and managing product categories to achieve business objectives.
- Channel Clustering (CC): Blue Yonder Channel Clustering uses data-mining techniques to form optimal retail store groupings based on user buying preferences, enabling retailers to create targeted consumer strategies for store, assortment, pricing, and promotion planning.
- Clip Strip: A simple merchandising fixture with clips for hanging products, often hung in aisles.
- Cluster: A group of stores related by consumer buying preferences, used for assortment purposes.
- Core Range: The products that form the “must stock” range within a store or category. These products offer what is regarded as the “minimum” choice and usually include key brands.
- Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): The direct costs associated with producing or purchasing the goods that a company sells during a specific period.
- Cross Merchandising: Displaying a product in a different category due to an associated relationship.
- Cubic Meter: The literal shelf space that a three-dimensional cube would occupy.
- Data Manager (DM): A person or system responsible for managing and organizing data within an organization.
- Database (DB): A structured set of data stored electronically, organized in a way that allows for easy retrieval and manipulation.
- Days of Supply (DOS): How long it would take to sell a product in a category if the shelf were filled to the item’s full allocated capacity.
- Days on Hand: The average inventory (in units) divided by the average daily movement of the unit.
- Delivery: Well-designed planogram can enhance the shopping experience for customers, increase sales, and improve operational efficiency. Delivering planograms takes expertise to get your reset ready for in-store execution. Learn more here.
- Depth (of product or tray): The physical space (usually expressed in mm) measured from the front to the back of a product or tray.
- Depth (of range): Refers to the number of variants/sizes of a product within a range. A deep range may include a large number of product sizes within the same product.
- Development Environment (DEV): A controlled environment for developing and testing software applications.
- Dimensions (DIMS): Measurements or parameters used to describe the size and shape of objects.
- Direct Product Cost (DPC): The direct cost associated with producing a specific product, excluding overhead and indirect costs.
- Display Ready: Packaging that makes it easy for staff to recognize brand, product type, or variant that is easy to open and can be merchandised on a shelf.
- Distribution: This can be measured as the number of stores that a product is stocked in or based on total volume sales. The level of distribution can be classified in a number of ways, although it is usually reported as a % of the total market or total stores of a specific retailer.
- Doors: The number of stores in an account.
- Dual Merchandising: The positioning of a product in more than one place in a store, in recognition that it may have more than one use.
Learn more terms and acronyms in our next segment. Want to full list now? Download the complete CatMan Glossary Ebook here: