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The language your buyer speaks
If some of these are new, that is exactly the gap we close. If all of them are familiar, you already know why the details matter.
The shelf cycle
- Line review
- The meeting where a buyer reviews the whole category and decides what is in and out for the next cycle. Usually once a year. This is the pitch.
- Modular “the mod”
- Walmart’s word for the planogram: exactly which items sit where on the shelf, and how many facings each one gets. Not on the mod, not in the store.
- Mod reset
- When store crews physically tear down and re-set shelves to the new modular. Everything upstream is planned backward from this date.
- Modular effective date
- The day the new layout goes live on shelf.
- Assortment
- The set of items actually carried in a category.
- Facings
- How many units wide your item appears on the shelf. More facings, more visibility, more velocity.
- Traits
- Store attributes that decide which version of a modular each store gets. This is how a regional product earns national distribution.
Getting it right
- OTIF
- On Time In Full. Deliver the right quantity inside the window, or pay for missing it.
- MABD
- Must Arrive By Date. The window OTIF is measured against.
- SQEP
- Supplier Quality Excellence Program. The compliance program covering labels, barcodes, packaging and paperwork.
- Deduction chargeback
- Money withheld from your invoice when any of the above slips. The quietest way a profitable item stops being profitable.
- VNPK / WHPK
- Vendor pack and warehouse pack. The case quantities everything downstream is built on.
- DSD
- Direct store delivery, as opposed to shipping into a distribution center. Two completely different operations.
How it performs
- Sell-through velocity
- How fast the item moves off the shelf. The number that decides whether you survive the next line review.
- UPSPW
- Units per store per week. Velocity, stated the way a buyer states it.
- In-stock %
- How often the item is actually there to buy. An out of stock is a lost sale and a mark against you.
- Comp
- Comparable store sales, measured against the same period last year.
- Rollback
- A temporary price reduction, funded and planned in advance.
- EDLP
- Every Day Low Price. The pricing philosophy the whole model is built on.
Who is in the room
- Merchant buyer
- The person who decides assortment. Not a “category manager” here, and calling them one tells the room you are new.
- Replenishment manager
- Owns the flow of goods after the yes. A different person, with different priorities, and you need both.
- Home Office
- Bentonville. Where the decisions get made, and where we are.
- Endcap
- The display at the end of an aisle. Off-shelf space, negotiated separately, and worth the fight.
Bring us the part you are stuck on.
Whether that is your first line review or a deduction you cannot explain.
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