Cosine launches new audit service

Cosine has launched a new category management focused product: Audit Category Precision, extending further the field agency’s ability to grow clients’ sales.

Nick Jones, Cosine CEO explains the service advances, “We’re really excited about Audit CP and its ability to provide manufacturers and retailers with a comprehensive / objective picture of the actual space they have in stores, compared to what they think they have. This is Cosine’s first category management offering. Traditional auditing of availability and promotional compliance is bread and butter activity for us, but this more sophisticated service, that Audits space rather than what products are physically available, offers brands the chance to compare a real-o-gram against their planogram.”

Matt Dealtry, head of insights at Cosine adds “There are four options with the Audit CP service; Capture, where we provide retailers and manufacturers with a clear picture of what space they have versus what their planogram shows; Compare, which is the next service level where we compare the reality of space in stores versus planogram and then we attribute sales data and provide the client with a missed sales value ; Contrast, where we will be working with clients advising on optimal fixture placement and quantifying impact of sales. Finally we will be consulting on fixture and range improvements to maximise sales, through data analysis identifying the sales performance of SKU’s in the fixture.”

Nick Jones explains why this service should become a fundamental part of category managers and sales directors’ planning “Last year there were approximately 160,000 new SKU’s introduced into UK grocery fixtures, a staggering 96% were line extensions all competing for much fought over static space. Our research shows that 10% is the average variance in planogram compliance, which means that brands have a substantial missed sales opportunity to convert. Even at 95% compliance research has shown that the average annual category sales can increase by 8%*”.

*source: ISI network and NARMS (National Association of Retail Marketing Services)