TJ Morris’s Home Bargains boast that they were recently ranked 6th in the Which? list of top 100 stores in the UK; tied with Apple Stores.  Yes, you read that right.   They have over 400 outlets and are talking publicly about 800.  They are a serious player in grocery, especially in ambient food and personal […]

B&M continue to perform strongly and are now big players in categories like toys, core grocery, snacking, household and personal care.  They talk confidently about their disruptive business model and are due to open fifty new stores this year.  How are they achieving this, what can we learn, and how should the rest of the […]

Poundland recently reported annual sales at around £1.5 billion, with steady like-for-like growth. They are significant players in categories like Snacking, Food to Go, Core Grocery and Personal Care. How are they achieving this, what can we learn, and how should the rest of the industry respond? The stores are well managed, tidy and welcoming, […]

There are fundamental principles that all good category strategies obey. One of these is to properly understand the retailer. You can have great consumer and shopper insight but if you don’t understand the retailer perspective and environment, you will not secure category growth. So what are the fundamental principles for growing categories with retailers? Here […]

There are fundamental principles that all good Category Strategies obey.  One of these is to properly understand the shopper. Shopping would be cognitively exhausting if shoppers tried to take in all the range and information offered to them in a store.  So they adopt coping strategies to save time and energy.  Much of their shopping […]

In an industry that can feel very complicated, it is useful to step back and revisit first principles.  Whilst each category has particular challenges and opportunities, there are fundamental rules for all categories, that must be obeyed if growth is to follow.  These concern the Consumer, the Shopper and the Retailer.  Let’s start with the […]

Insight is a widely used word in our industry.  In fact, it would be hard to think of another word as widely used, that is so loosely defined and so poorly understood. Let’s start with the easy bit.  What DOESN’T it mean?  Insight is not just data, market research or facts, though it is often […]

What can you do to enable quality thinking in our fast-changing and uncertain world? I have talked previously about creating the right work environment and making the most of different perspectives (the consumption chain perspective, the industry expert, the person who knows nothing about the category, and people in other functions). But there is a […]

What can you do to enable quality thinking in our fast-changing and uncertain world?  I talked last time about how the right work environment will help.  Optimise your work space, get outside the workplace, get to the coalface and keep up with the outside world.  But it is equally important to make maximum use of […]