PAYING FOR SHELF SPACE: AN INVESTIGATION OF MERCHANDISING ALLOWANCES IN THE GROCERY INDUSTRY

This research examines the behavior of manufacturers and retailers in the presence of merchandising allowances. Merchandising allowances are fees manufacturers pay retailers to encourage them to allocate certain in-store promotional activities to the manufacturers' brand. According to estimates, retailers collect billions of dollars in these allowance payments annually. Using a three-stage game, I formulate a vertical structural model that endogenously models manufacturer, retailer, and consumer behavior. Manufacturers compete with each other, using merchandising allowance payments, in order to obtain premium shelf space at retail outlets. Retailers, given allowance offers, choose display configurations and then set retail prices. Consumers observe the display and retail prices and determine whether to purchase one or no units of the good. I estimate the model with a method of moments technique using IRI scanner data from the ketchup industry. In addition to estimating consumer tastes parameters, the model yields predictions of the underlying wholesale prices and the merchandising allowances each manufacturer offers. I use the parameter estimates to conduct a counterfactual simulation of how agents might respond when the use of merchandising allowances is no longer permissible. I find that while merchandising allowances increase retail profits, total welfare is lower due to the allowances.Industrial Organization, Marketing,

ESTIMATING THE IMPORTANCE OF SHELF SPACE CONFIGURATION ON RETAILER'S PROFIT

Retail shelf space allocation remains a central issue in grocery retailing. A literature review produced many studies on retail shelf space allocation, but none which evaluated shelf space allocation using three major factors at once: space, vertical height, and price. In this study, shelf space allocation was modeled from the perspective of a retailer maximizing profit using space, vertical height, and price. Using benchmarking, the results show how shelf configuration affects consumer demand and retailer profit. Parameters for the model were based on experience-based intuition. Although the initial results are not valuable at this point, the method and results create a rationale and motivation to gather primary data. Once primary data is collected, this methodology has important applications. First, it develops an understanding of which parameters are important in determining optimal shelf space configuration. Second, a properly specified model would determine retailer's profit for specific shelf level configurations.shelf space allocation, retail, optimization, grocery, elasticity, GAMS, ketchup.

Shelf Space Fees and Inter-Brand Competition

When in-store display influences consumer choices, shelf space allocation can be strategically used by retailers to extract payments from manufacturers. The paper finds that manufacturers with more popular brands have higher willingness-to-pay for the premium shelf spaces of supermarkets. Shelf space fees soften inter-brand competition and result in higher sale-weighted average retail price as well as inter-brand price differences. The fees increase the industry profit but lower the upstream profit. Both the aggregate consumer surplus and social welfare are negatively affected. This paper suggests that even when the fees do not drive small manufacturers out of retail stores, they might still be anti-competitive.Antitrust, In-store display, Shelf space fee, Retail market, Slotting allowance

ANTITRUST IMPLICATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY FOOD PRODUCTION AND MARKETING ISSUES

Discusses current antitrust cases and lists implications for the food industry.Industrial Organization,

Effects of category management on producer-retailer relationships

The relationships between retailers and producers are considered for understanding the determinants of quality, variety and prices. In the food sector, some issues have been extensively studied: impacts of private labels, supply contracts, price transmission. Despite an increasing role, the implementation of “Category management” (CM) has been less studied. CM belongs to a set of methods based on the concepts of Efficient Consumer Response and Supply Chain Management which have been widely implemented by large retailers and thus have changed the relationships among actors in the food chain. As a part of this evolution, Category Captain’s concept (CC) involves a commitment between a retailer and one of the suppliers who receives decision-making power over the product category. Usually, the major of the food suppliers plays the CC’s role in partnership with the retailers. In practices, CC raises many questions. What effects on the sales and prices? Is it beneficial for all the stakeholders, including the consumers? What are their consequences on the non captain suppliers? We propose a vertical relationship model considering that the retailer is the chain’s leader (Stackelberg game). We compare a non-cooperative game (no CC) to a cooperative game (one supplier as CC). We analyse under which conditions CC improves the profit of each stakeholder, as well as the consumers’ surplus. We show that the cooperative game is always a “win, win, win” game for stakeholders (but not necessary for consumers) if the two suppliers offer similar products. If products are different, we define the parameters relationships under which CC is beneficial for stakeholders and consumers.Category captain, shelf space allocation, game theory, Stackelberg equilibrium., Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Strategic Positioning of Store Brands in Retailer - Manufacturer Bargaining

We argue in this paper that retailers can strategically position store brands in product space to strengthen their bargaining position when negotiating supply terms with manufacturers of national brands. Using a bargaining framework we model a retailer's decision whether to carry an additional national brand or a store brand, and if the retailer chooses to introduce the latter, where in product space to locate the store brand. Store brands differ from other brands in being both unadvertised and located at a position in product space that is determined by the retailer instead of by a manufacturer. To capture the negotiation effect of store brands empirically, our paper analyses a retailer's choice of whether or not to carry a store brand in a given category. We control for other motivations for carrying a store brand that have been used in the literature. We test our model on a cross-section of categories using supermarket data from multiple retailers. The first contribution of this paper is to show theoretically that the strategic positioning of a store brand in a category changes the bargaining over supply terms between a retailer and national brand manufacturers in that category. The empirical evidence is consistent with the theory. We find that retailers are more likely to carry a store brand in a category if the share of the leading national brand is higher, but that the leading national brand share does not affect the market share of the store brand. This indicates that there may be a bargaining motive for the introduction of the store brand. We propose that this is because the retailer can position the store brand to mimic the leading national brand and present data that shows that store brands frequently imitate national brand packaging on multiple dimensions.

Vertical competition between manufacturers and retailers and upstream incentives to innovate and differentiate

Vertical competition, namely competition between retailers' store brands (or private labels) and manufacturers' brands has become a crucial factor of change of the competitive environment in several industries, particularly in the grocery and food industries. Despite the growing literature on the determinants of the phenomenon, one topic area regarding the impact of vertical competition on the upstream incentives to adopt non-price strategies such as product innovation as well as horizontal and vertical product differentiation has so far received little attention. An idea often put forward is that the increasing bargaining power of retailers and higher vertical competitive pressures can have negative effects on such incentives by lowering manufacturers' profits. On the other hand, there is a significant empirical evidence supporting the view that non-price strategies of product innovation and differentiation continue to play a key role and remain a crucial source of competitive advantages for several manufacturers. In this paper, we present a simple conceptual framework which allows us to focus on two hypotheses which interacting explain why the disincentive effects are not so obvious. The first hypothesis regards the existence of an inverse relationship between the strength of a given brand and the retail margin as suggested by Robert Steiner. Through a two-stage model in which manufacturers do not sell directly to final consumers and the retail industry is not perfectly competitive, Steiner argued persuasively that in such models leading brands in a product category yield lower retail margins than less strong brands. Retailers are forced to stock strong brands and therefore have relatively less bargaining power in negotiating wholesale prices. In addition, price competition among retailers is more intense on strong brands since consumers select these brands to form their perceptions of stores' price competitiveness and are ready to shift to lower price stores if retail price of these brands is not perceived as competitive. Thus, intensive intrabrand competitive pressures discipline retailers pricing policy on stronger manufacturer brands much more than on weaker brands. A key prediction of Steiner's two-stage model is that, since manufacturers' non-price strategies have a margin depressing impact which is additional to their direct demand - creating effect, manufacturers face greater incentives to invest in advertising and R&D. The second central hypothesis in our framework is that in a world of asymmetric brands and intense vertical competition there is a further mechanism at work due to retailers' delisting decisions. Given that retailers have to make room for their store brands at the point of sale, they have to readjust their assortments delisting some manufacturer brands. Retailers would like delisting strong brands given that the retailer's margin on these brands is lower. The problem is that strong brands can contrast vertical pressures better than weaker brands and cannot be delisted. In making shelf - space decisions, rational retailers will recognise that they can delist only the brands whose brand loyalty is lower than their store loyalty. On the contrary, retailers cannot delist brands for which brand loyalty is greater than store loyalty. This implies that manufacturer brands operate in a two- region environment. We call these two regions, respectively, the 'delisting' and 'no-delisting' region and show that the demarcation point between them is given by the level of retailer's store loyalty. By combining the Steiner's hypothesis with the mechanism of delisting, we argue that in a competitive environment characterized by vertical competition is at work a threshold effect which increases optimal 2 R&D and advertising expenditures. The intuition is that it is vital for manufacturers willing to remain sellers of branded products to keep brand loyalty of their brands at a level higher than retailer's store loyalty. And the only way to pursue this goal and avoid to be involved into the risk of being delisted is to boost brands. We also show that vertical competitive pressures are particularly strong on second- tier brands. A brief review of some recent patterns and stylised facts in the food industries and grocery channels consistent with these predictions conclude the paper.vertical competition, store brands, delisting, optimal advertising, Industrial Organization,

The impact of labels on the competitiveness of the European food label supply chain

The report studies the impact of private labels on the competitiveness of the European food processing industry and investigates whether a system of producer indication may improve the functioning of the food supply chain. The impact is studied using economic theory and empirical and legal analysis. The study is completed with an impact assessment

Assesing the frequency and clauses of out-of-stock events through store scanner data

This paper aims to provide an answer to the question of out-of-stock events (OOS), their frequency, the sales losses they generate, and their causes. The authors provide two contributions. They describe a new sales-based measure of OOS computed on the basis of store-level scanner data and identify several of the main determinants of OOS. They also introduce a significant distinction between complete and partial OOSout-of-stock events; store-level scanner data; assortment; retailing; marketing metrics