Product Capture

Constructing a planogram in any of the available software packages requires physical product data to provide the building blocks. The minimum details are;

Unique Product Code (usually barcode)
Name or Description
Physical Dimensions (height, width and depth)

Existing planogram files from space planning software contain the above details and more for all the products on the plan and these records may be used to build more planograms.

Where existing planograms are unavailable data can be captured via spreadsheets of existing properties or directly from the product. Whole categories may be captured by obtaining sample product and recording the vital statistics along with other desirable details like Brand, Manufacturer, Sub-Category, Unit of measure etc. When samples are available it is also recommended that images are captured at the same time.

Product database records can be maintained with the help of programmable barcode scanners – these assist the merchandiser to gather information (eg. Shelf ready packaging configurations)  and check whether a product appears in a database correctly.